The Mountains Call Me Home (And I Must Go)
by seastarved
Summary: There once was a princess in a kingdom by the sea. She was beautiful, brave and true but cursed to live forever,her heart never beating in her chest,her blood tempestuous, her bones restless. Her very existence a lonely fairytale. Until she meets a man whose eyes remind her of the sea, whose smile echoes with the loneliness of hers. Until she realises that his heart lies still too.


Her dress is white and soaking wet.

It is terrible poetry, she thinks, or some kind of vindictive magic, that it is raining today. They're saying in the streets that the heavens mourn for the King and Queen, that the skies cry tears for their loss. They're saying that the magic of the river that has lain sleeping within their kingdom for centuries has awoken to cause this unseasonal rain, this endless pouring from the skies that does not rush toward the earth, but instead caresses the people's cheeks as if wiping their tears away.

Emma doesn't share this view however, her heart too angry and restless. She thinks that the rain is rather vindictive and wipes the tears and water off her face angrily as she runs.

It begins at a funeral which will be ironic some day in the future, but today it just hurts. It hurts everywhere. Her heart, her lungs, her belly. She is supposed to be untouchable, cursed with a life that would feel no age, no hurt and yet she feels as though she is being pulled apart.

It hurts everywhere except for the warmth of the hand in hers. A sloppy bandage holding her together even as she feels like she is about to fall apart. He runs with her, the pounding of his feet on the grass matching up with hers in a steady rhythm.

She feels his eyes on her, tracing her features, following her tears. She feels him watch and she knows it is coming but she is still taken by surprise, pulled back into him when he suddenly stops.

His hook at her chin makes her shiver from the cold as she looks away from him, her hair wet around her face, sticking to her cheeks. He pushes the strands away before tilting her face up to look at him.

His eyes look through her just like they did the very first time he saw her.

He knows her. He knows her heart.

So when she says "Please," in that almost voice, in that sob disguised as speech, he only nods his head and pulls on her hand and begins to run again.

Just like he had before, when she had come to him with tears in her eyes and a hand on his chest, asking him to run away with her after her parents funeral.

He could only have ever said yes.

* * *

 _Once upon a time, on a brisk spring morning, a baby's cry broke the silence of a whole palace holding its breath._

 _Princess Emma came into the world on a day when the sun shone softly and the breeze caressed your hair. She was beautiful and small, her parents head over heels in love with her from the moment they first laid eyes on her. Her hair was fine and golden, her eyes a piercing green, her scream a powerful thing as her little mouth said hello to the world._

 _She was perfect._

 _Except for one thing._

 _Her heart didn't beat._

 _Still as a mountain, her heart stayed silent even as her little hands clutched at her mother's hair, even as her first laugh twinkled through the halls. The royal physician tried everything he could to find her pulse. Pressed his ears to her chest, her wrists._

 _Listening, listening but to no avail._

 _He wondered and studied and researched about what it could be that made her this way but the king and queen already knew._

 _For you see, they remembered the stories._

 _The stories of the great river that flowed through their kingdom. The stories of how in the old days when magic was new and the very air sparkled with it, a special few of those who drank from the mighty river were granted immortality._

 _A gift. A curse._

 _People called it many names but as the world grew older and magic older still, the power of the river faded. The power of the river's gift faded as well._

 _The Never Dying did not appear as often as they used to, only a single child every few hundred years was born with a heart as still as the river was not. Their existence became rarer and rarer until people began to believe that they didn't exist at all. The tales of the Never Dying grew many and varied, spanning thousands of years. What had begun as historical fact began to fade into legend, myth, and eventually fairytale._

 _And just like the rest of the kingdom, the king and queen believed that the stories were just that._

 _Stories._

 _But here's the thing about stories. They are a magic all on their own. They carry the history of the land, of its people in them, they bring back those who have been dead for centuries, they have the power to grant magic to the mundane and sweetness to a bitter past._

 _But most of all, stories?_

 _They remain._

 _Even after the people who had first told them pass, the stories live on. They remain upon the tongues of wizened old men and women tucking in their grandchildren at night with a tale of magic and secrets. They remain in the half remembered songs that people sing when they want to remember their youth, when they want to capture a different sort of magic. They remain in new stories, told, retold and changed beyond measure and yet holding the original somewhere in their depths._

 _And as long as the story remains, the magic does too._

* * *

She sits in a corner at Granny's tavern, a cup of ale in her hand and her head pounding with pain. She watches the small crowd mill about the tavern, laughing, drinking, cups being crashed together in cheer, waitresses balancing trays full of food and making their way through the revel. Nobody seems to notice the woman sitting alone in a dim corner with a hood covering her face in shadow, her eyes drifting across the room as she occasionally sips from the cup in front of her. It is a busy night at Granny's, the third busiest of the year according to Granny herself, for it was the night of the Prince's birthday.

Their prince, her little brother had turned forty today and the kingdom had held a festival in his honour. The streets were lined with light in lanterns that burned all night, the river's banks flooded with people dancing, eating, laughing. The air of celebration was infectious and though her mind had been preoccupied as it almost always was, Emma had been having a wonderful time walking through the festival with her arm linked with Leo's.

Her little brother with his hair starting to turn silver, with wrinkles starting to blossom on his face, with the stories of his life leaving their mark on his body even as she looked the same as she did on her 25th birthday. It had been so much easier when they had been younger, when Leo had actually _looked_ like he was ten years younger than her.

But now, she worries everyday how long it will take before people realise the true reason for her rescinding her claim to the throne on Leo's eighteenth birthday.

"Another?"

She looks up, startled at the voice breaking her out of her thoughts.

"Yes please, thank you."

She smiles at Granny in thanks when the woman drops a plate of nuts in front of her before moving away to get a refill. She should be at the palace celebrating with her family, but Princess Ella's voice rings in her mind as sure as it had rung in the ballroom at the palace.

 _"Oh Emma! Leo has gotten more and more handsome with age but you must tell me your secret because you only seem to be getting younger!"_

It had begun with a slight flutter in her belly, a little worry niggling at her, growing, growing until she had finally locked eyes with her brother across the room even as he had been spinning about the dance floor with some foreign duchess or other. He had excused himself immediately to stand beside her and hold her hand. He had understood when she had whispered to him that she had to go.

(Just like he had understood when she had told him the truth on his 18th birthday.)

And she had come here.

Granny's tavern had been her place to run to for as long as she can remember. A place for her to escape to and pretend to be someone else. Someone just like the people that surrounded her, someone wonderfully ordinary. But secretly, even though she wouldn't admit it to herself, it was because being here was as far as she could allow herself to get from her castle, as close as she could get to escaping.

Because even though the stories talk about her never beating heart and her never aging body, they forget what is possibly the most important detail.

For as long as she can remember, Emma has felt a pulling sensation in her belly. It feels as though she is missing something, as though she needs to be out there, somewhere, anywhere right now _searching_ for this thing she cannot name. It is a restless want that plagues her, a powerful pull that makes her dream of running and never looking back.

Her eyes drift to a young couple dancing by the fireplace, their arms around one another as they spin and laugh, a man playing a raucous tune on a mandolin providing the music.

She smiles softly as she watches them, her belly pulling at her just like it has done for years and years. She has grown accustomed to the hunger and yet sometimes, it is too much.

She gets up to leave.

She will apologise to Granny later.

* * *

 _The King and Queen raised a formidable woman._

 _Princess Emma was a happy child. She learned how to fight with a sword from her father, learned how to track and hunt with a bow and arrow from her mother. She learned reading and writing, diplomacy and court etiquette but she was happiest when she was wandering through the woods in the castle grounds, jumping barefoot across the rocks that covered the riverbed._

 _Each day she went further and further along the river, her silent heart answering a call she felt in her bones until one day when she was twelve, she found herself at an edge, the water falling down to the ground below in a rush of mist and thunder. She found herself looking and looking, her feet pushing closer and closer to the edge, her eyes leaning over, trying to find another way to get down and keep going._

 _But before she could make a move, she felt strong arms wrap around her, lifting her from the ground. Her father's voice in her ears, whispering thanks again and again that she was alright._

 _That was the day that the King and Queen realised that there was something the legends had forgotten._

 _For everything the river gives, the river takes away just a little._

 _The Never Dying are born with stories in their bones. They are born wanting, fierce with a hunger to learn, to discover, to seek something they cannot yet name. They grow to be restless and restive, always searching for something that they cannot place, always wandering, trying to find it, always incomplete._

 _And so was Princess Emma._

 _It was easier when she was younger, her heart sated easily with the love from her parents, with her new little brother, with the castle grounds that seemed boundless to her. But as she grew older, it became harder to keep the restlessness contained, her heart pushing her to leave, to go searching for more._

 _She tried everyday to quell the endless ache in her chest, the uneasiness in her bones. She began to push at the edges of her boundaries towards the far reaches of her kingdom, traveling to villages at the very outskirts of what she knew while staying within the walls. Pushing as far as she could without tempting her heart to run._

 _The walls of her kingdom becoming both safe haven and cage all at once._

 _When her little brother turned eighteen, Princess Emma rescinded her claim to the throne saying that she would be much happier staying on the sidelines. The streets were filled with confused conversations for the people loved her, and they knew that their princess would one day be a Queen to be reckoned with._

 _But, they did not know the truth._

 _The King and Queen had waited until the Princess was old enough to decide for herself if she wanted to reveal her story to the rest of the kingdom and when the time had come, Princess Emma had decided to keep it secret._

 _For how would she explain?_

 _That she could not be queen because it would be unfair for one such as herself to hold any power._

 _That she was but a story, a fairytale come to life._

 _How could she ever be Queen?_

* * *

The sound of colliding music hits her ears as she leaves the tavern. The raucous noise of celebration further down the river and music from inside mixing into a cacophony of joy. The door closes behind her with the little bell ringing her farewell. She pulls her cloak tighter around herself, her hood still hiding her features as she turns into the alley by Granny's to walk back to her horse.

Her mind is still overrun with thoughts of her present, her past, and her never ending future as she walks in the chill night air, her breath coming out in small puffs of steam, her fingers feeling a little numb even as she hides them under her cloak, her gloves lost somewhere in her rush to escape the castle. Lost in the storm of her own thoughts as she is, the hand on her shoulder is a sudden intrusion, as is the smooth voice far too close to her ear.

"Hello, love. Could we talk a minute? I'm..."

She reacts instinctively, her father's training taking over as she pulls the knife from the belt around her waist. She has him against the wall of the alley before he can finish his sentence, her knife at his throat, her body keeping him still.

"Whoa, Princess! I'm not here to hurt you."

He has his hands up.

Hand.

She notices that one of his hands ends at the wrist, replaced by a shiny hook that rests with it's pointy end facing away from her. His black leather coat swings open to reveal several silver chains hanging around his neck. The skull pendant on one of them seems to look out at her, green jewels set into where its eyes are.

His hair is a mess, sticking up on all sides, the back of it pressed up against the brick wall and long strands falling into his eyes but even so, as she meets their blue depths, she sees the sincerity in them. One of the many benefits of age without decay, her senses only get sharper and she has always been able to spot a lie.

This man would not hurt her.

Still, she had to wonder-

"How do you know who I am?"

"Stories travel, lass. I had to come see the woman who was near half a century old and did not look older than twenty five."

Her heart sinks in her chest. _Surely_ , he didn't know, he couldn't know.

He smiles, wide and a little smug, leaning into her space as he continues.

"But I must say, the tales of your beauty do not do you justice. The truth is far more breathtaking."

Her breath hitches in her throat as he looks at her, his eyes never straying from hers even as he says the words. She has never seen him before for she is certain she would remember those eyes, remember the way that he's looking at her.

She presses the knife deeper and forces him to move his head back to the wall. He grunts softly in pain as his head hits the brick, biting his lower lip as he moves his eyes back to her, scanning her face.

"What do you know?"

Her voice comes out unsteady, wavering somewhere between fear and anger and he must notice because his smile softens into confusion, his eyes searching hers, flickering between them. The smug bravado drops out of his posture, his body slumping against the wall, his head cocking to one side.

"You don't know. I was sure you could sense-"

His voice is a whisper as if he is talking to himself. He moves to raise his hand and she presses the knife to his neck deeper in warning but he just raises his eyebrows, his hook in a placating gesture.

"Try something new darling, it's called trust."

She raises her own eyebrow in response.

"Really? And why should I trust you?"

"That's what I'm trying to show you. Please let me?"

It takes her a moment, a flurry of tension in her body as she straightens, ready to fight him if he tries anything, before she nods.

He raises his hand again, even slower this time and reaches for hers that isn't holding the knife against his throat. His fingers slip around her wrist and it is then she realises just how close they are, his breath puffing clouds in the cold air by her neck, the heat of his body pressing through her legs, through the layers of her skirt and cloak and through the black leather he wears from head to toe.

His fingers are warm and calloused, the rings that cover most of his fingers cold against her skin and she has to suppress a shiver at the contact. He moves their hands towards him, towards his chest where his skin is visible between his shirt and vest, a deep vee allowing his chest hair to peek through and she idly wonders how he isn't cold.

He moves her hand to the center of his chest until her fingers are resting against his skin.

"What do you feel?"

His voice is a whisper, his head ducking down to meet her eyes even as her own are fixated on their joined hands on his chest, rising and falling as he breathes.

"What do you feel there, Emma?"

The realisation comes like lightning and she moves away instantly, pulling her hand away from his grasp, her knife falling to her side.

"Nothing. I feel nothing."

Her voice comes out breathless, her body coiling tighter every second.

"No heartbeat. Princess, I'm just like you."

She takes another step back.

No. No.

"Emma please, I just want to talk."

His arms are raised in surrender and she believes him and yet, she cannot quell the panic in her belly, the pounding of her blood, urging her to run. Telling her that this wasn't safe.

She has hidden behind this secret her whole life. It has been protection. It has been what has been keeping her from chasing the pull, the calling she feels in her bones. It is what has been keeping her here. It is what has been keeping her home.

The fact that she is a fairytale, a story. It is easier to pretend that the story isn't real, that she is ordinary when there is but one person to convince, one person to deceive.

Herself.

But the man in front of her is flesh and blood, his heart as still as hers, his eyes as alive as hers.

It makes the story real.

She runs.

* * *

 _Killian Jones was born upon the water._

 _His father was a sailor and his mother was a woman in love. She had followed Killian's father, her first son Liam in tow, onto the ship when he had left one morning with tearful goodbyes and promises of forever. His captain, despite his reputation of being a ruthless pirate, had taken pity on the lovers and allowed her to stay._

 _Killian Jones was born upon the water, the sea his first kiss and his first love. But his parents were folks of the river, its waters running in their blood and in his._

 _He grew to be a curious child, running out to the ocean whenever he could, his little feet leaving footprints in the sand, his fingers dipping into the water as he walked. His mother rocked him to sleep each night with a story that led him on journeys even as he dreamed. Of heroes and glory, of adventure and the open seas._

 _His family was a happy one, his childhood as open as the endless shores near which he lived._

 _Until it wasn't._

 _His mother taken away on the arms of an illness, his father fading away into a shadow who left Killian and his brother one night, never to return. Killian felt his first true urge to run that night when he was 7, lying on his back in his bed by his older brother, his very bones pulling on him to walk, run to the ocean and never look back._

 _But his brother's fingers found his in his sleep, his grip loose but the touch of his skin strong enough for Killian to turn into Liam's shoulder and pull back. He stayed that night and his brother became his whole world._

 _Liam taught him how to read, taught him how to sail. He ate and slept and laughed and cried with him. They made a new family for themselves. Smaller, a little broken but a family, just the same._

 _But some wounds do not heal. Though Killian loved his brother, his soul was far too shattered to try and repair itself, his heart too restless for having never beat in his chest and he began to wander, his body answering the pull in his bones as easily as a leaf carried away on the current._

 _He gambled and drank and yet, he never left. He stayed with Liam in their town by the sea, spending his days looking out into the water, trying to work and help Liam the best he could. It was not the happiest existence for he too felt the pull of the river, of the water. He felt the need to run, run as fast and as far as he could._

 _He let the restlessness rule him but he never left._

 _It is poetic perhaps, that Liam was the one who first noticed Killian's silent heart._

 _It happened one morning when Killian was 18, Liam's hand on his chest as he tried to wake him up from another night spent by the water, a bottle in his hand. At first he had thought Killian dead, his own heart stopping in his chest. But when Killian had awoken with bleary eyes and thick voice, Liam had only hugged him in relief._

 _They had heard the stories, of course._

 _But stories are for dreaming, for books, for whispers around a warm fire._

 _Stories don't happen to people, do they?_

* * *

She spends the night locked in her rooms, pacing the cold floor until the fire turns into embers and the wood beneath her grows warm. The gnawing in her belly is stronger than ever, rendering her unable to sit down, unable to close her eyes. Her mind running in circles even as her feet trace the same path around her rooms again and again.

He was like her.

The realisation that she is not alone in this feels like a comfort she is far too afraid to embrace. A temptation, a pull as strong as the one she had first felt on the edge of that waterfall all those years ago.

A breeze flutters through her curtains making her shiver. She moves to the window to close its shutters but her eyes catch upon the view outside.

From her room she can see the gardens, the woods that follow. She can see the great wall that surrounds the palace grounds. Beyond the walls, she sees little chimneys of the homes in the kingdom's capital, with smoke billowing out from them, slow and steady, dispersing in the night air. Beyond, she sees the ships docked at the edge of their little capital. Beyond, she sees the open sea.

Beyond.

Her breath becomes fast and shallow, clouding up the glass on the window pane as she slams it shut. She wants- oh how she wants- to run away now, to find the man in the leather, with his eyes that knew her without ever knowing her, whose heart did not beat just the same as hers.

But the fear that she keeps buried, the fear that she never speaks out loud seems to flood her insides.

If she lets herself leave, she may not return.

* * *

A few miles away, in a small room with moonlight filtering through his curtains and a candle on its last legs on his table, Killian Jones writes a note.

* * *

 _Princess Emma,_

 _I must apologise for the way that I approached you last night. It was not my intention to surprise or frighten you in any way. I truly believed that you could sense me the way I have been able to sense your presence since I have stepped foot in my old home._

 _It has been years, decades since I have been back but when I heard the stories of a Princess who would not grow old, I allowed myself to hope. Madly, desperately, that there might yet be someone who would understand this lonely curse._

 _I assure you that all I want is to talk. Your secret is safe with me._

 _I will be at the same tavern where we met last night at the table by the back door._

 _I hope to see you._

 _Sincerely yours,_

 _Killian Jones_

* * *

The tavern is quiet tonight.

The sound of the bell as she enters sounds unusually loud, ringing out over the low murmur of conversation that fills the room. People sit in small groups nursing mugs of ale and rum, drinking slowly or not at all, an occasional groan breaking the silence.

Leo's birthday was a big night for all it seems.

She spots him by the back door. He had turned to look at her when she had entered like the other people in the tavern, the little bell announcing her arrival as it had. But unlike the others, he hadn't turned away.

He stands as she gets closer, as she crosses the room in slow, measured steps until they are facing one another.

He is wearing the same clothes as last night, his hair still flipping out behind his ears and swooping onto his forehead, his fingers rubbing against one another as he fidgets. Nothing like the man she had seen yesterday with his cocky stare and smug grin.

She feels about as nervous as he looks, her own hand reaching up to fiddle with her necklace- a little Swan pendant Leo had gifted her on her 18th birthday- her eyes looking anywhere but into his.

He clears his throat, bringing her attention back to his face.

"Shall we sit, milady?"

She nods and takes a seat opposite him as he signals a waitress to bring her a drink.

"What did you want to talk about?"

She finally speaks, her voice a little raspy at first but steadier as she finishes.

"I must confess, I'm not entirely sure," he shrugs his shoulders and looks away from her, his eyes on his half finished glass of rum, condensation dripping down the sides of the glass and onto the table.

"When I first heard of you, I could not help but start making my way toward you. I couldn't-"

He looks up at her again, grinning at her but it is soft and she finds herself relaxing just a little, sinking into her seat.

"You know, they speak of you as far as Agrabah? They call you the Swan Princess there," he grins, his eyes drifting to the pendant, her namesake around her neck. Her parents had named her Swan after an old legend about warrior goddesses who would transform into the beautiful birds as they fought.

(Emma Swan, Princess of Misthaven with stories living in her very name.)

His eyes come back to meet her almost immediately as he continues speaking.

"I heard your name from a man in a market boasting about his travels, of all the beauty he had seen and he counted your face among some of the most wondrous sights he has had the pleasure to lay his eyes upon."

She raises her eyebrows at him, cocking her head to the side.

He must see the skepticism in her face for he laughs, loud and free, and she tries to ignore the way her stomach seems to do a little flip when he does.

"Flattery is wasted on you then."

"I'd say that's a pretty good assumption."

She cannot help but smile back at him and just like that, it is easier.

"Tell me about Agrabah," she says as the waitress places a big mug of ale in front of her, some of the liquid splashing onto the table.

"Oh, but it is beautiful!"

His face lights up at her question, his eyes twinkling with excitement, his voice skipping over his words as he tries to explain. She smiles at him- oh, so much easier now- and takes a sip of her drink.

"The air smells of spices and there seems to be a certain magic running through the air. The markets are some of the most incredible I have ever seen. Vegetables piled upon carts, big and beautiful and in every colour you can imagine. There are carts and stalls everywhere peddling the most delicious food."

His eyes drift away from her for a moment. Lost somewhere in his own memories, his voice loses its excited pitch, melting into something softer as he continues, his rum sitting forgotten in front of him.

"The ocean there is the bluest I have ever seen and on a still night, when the air is quiet and the night is old, you can all the flickering lights of the city reflected in the water. There is truly nothing like it."

His eyes focus on hers again as he shakes his head, his hand reaching for his glass to take another sip.

"Trust me, I know. I have been alive for centuries," a wry grin curves his mouth as he brings his glass to his lips.

But her breath stops, quickly and quietly as she realises-

"What about you? I'm sure the Princess must have a thousand tales to tell of mysterious places and- Emma?"

She realises that she's been staring at him, her eyes wide, her hands having long abandoned her drink, her smile falling away.

"I'm sorry, Killian. I have to-"

This was a bad idea. Being faced with the truth of your own immortality was a rush, hearing him speak of lands she has never seen and of centuries to do it in and she had found herself caught in the current, her body aching and urging her to leave.

With him.

She couldn't take that chance. She couldn't abandon her home.

So she leaves him instead.

Standing at the table, his mouth open to call her name, to stop her but only hearing the ringing bell of the tavern as the door closes in her wake in response.

* * *

 _Killian Jones has lived a long time. But, the time for which he had a family was just a lightning short moment in his unbearably long life._

 _When Killian had told Liam of the restlessness that ruled him, Liam had just gone out and brought home forms to join the kingdom's Royal Navy._

 _And the Brothers Jones found themselves._

 _Liam found his calling in the order and routine, in the structure and steadiness and Killian, oh, Killian lost himself in the adventure of it all. He dreamt of new places and visited quite a few, the current pulling at his belly easing whenever he was upon the open sea. He saw wonders and terrible things in equal measure, his eyes growing older even as his body stayed the same._

 _But it was not to last, as most things were wont to do for a man who was to live forever._

 _Killian lost his brother in an accident on an island a long way from home, where their king's quest for medicine led them to poison. But he also lost all the careful control he had kept on his impulse to run all these years. He turned to piracy, to being his own master. He lived and breathed on his own commands and he let the restless ache in his gut truly rule him for the first time._

 _It took his breath away. The freedom, the excitement. He and his crew chased their whims with a fierce joy. They travelled to the ends of the oceans, to islands where the water glowed with something that felt like magic, to ports where the wine smelled like promises and heartbreak._

 _But even the best of them eventually felt the pull of land. They felt the anchor in their own bellies to stop, to settle. One by one, they left him and he lost his only companions. To family, to love, to death._

 _Until the only one left standing was him._

* * *

The door that leads into the castle kitchens closes louder than she intends, her breath still harsh and fast as she had run the entire way back home, yearning for the warmth of the fire in her hearth to calm the storm inside her.

She slows her breaths so she can count them, her eyes closed, trying to calm herself down as she lets herself fall against the door, allowing the feel of the heavy wood under her palms to calm her.

"Emma? Are you alright?"

Her father's voice startles her, her eyes shooting open to find him sitting at the small table by the fireplace, a small fire burning within. He sits with a plate with a slice of half-eaten cake in front of him, the fork halfway back down from his mouth, a piece of cake speared on the end.

"What are you doing here, dad?"

He puts the fork down on the plate with a little clink as the metal hits the ceramic.

"I just came down because your mother's been snoring and I felt a little peckish so- Emma are you alright? You look a little pale."

He gets off the stool he's sitting on, his hand resting on the table, slow and careful before he makes him way to her. The silver in his hair glows gold in the light of the fire, his features looking gaunt as the shadows cut across him.

His shoulders straight and his spine tall, her father though pushing 90, is still strong. His eyes sharp as he looks upon his people, his grip on his sword powerful as he practices everyday.

And yet.

His fingers aren't quite still as he takes her hand, his step not quite steady as he has her sit down by the table. She's looking at his fingers covering hers. They look thinner today, older somehow. She looks up when he speaks, her eyes meeting his blue ones, her lip starting to quiver softly, her cheeks rushing with colour.

"Emma, darling. Talk to me."

She's well past half a century old but in that moment, as his thumb comes up to wipe a tear away from her cheeks, she feels as though she is 12 again, standing at the edge of that waterfall, waiting to fall into his arms.

"It's nothing."

"Shh, I'm your father remember? Now tell me what's wrong."

His hand falls away from her face to take hers again and she looks at him, sees how the life he's lived lies marked upon his face. The smiles, the frowns, the laughs forever etched into the wrinkles, crows feet and a myriad of lines on his face, telling his story. She wonders how she should begin telling him what's been happening, her mouth opening and closing again and again as she struggles to begin, her eyes flickering between his as if hoping to find the answer there.

He doesn't seem to need her to speak.

"You know, when you were about 6 or so, you'd come sit on my lap on the throne when no one was around and talk to me. You'd talk nonstop and your little voice would be the biggest thing in that huge, empty room. And oh, I loved it. So much, Emma."

The lump in her throat gets bigger somehow even as she chokes out a laugh, remembering her voice ringing through the great hall and her father's eyes and attention completely on her as she spoke.

Like they are now.

"But, you know what you'd talk about? You'd tell me about all the places you wanted to go when you were Queen, all the things you'd see and do. You talked about Arendelle and Agrabah and-," he chuckles, shaking his head and she can't help but smile in response even as her stomach drops hearing him talk about Agrabah, another very different voice saying the same thing ringing unbidden in her mind. One talking about the limitless possibilities of her immortality and the other reminding her just how mortal all those she loved were.

Her father continues speaking, his fingers stroking her knuckles softly, back and forth, back and forth.

"You know you can go Emma? You can leave here and follow your- I'm not quite sure what it is but I know you feel it."

The tears start to fall even as she grips his fingers tighter, shaking her head no. He doesn't understand, she doesn't know where she would go, doesn't know if she'd return, doesn't know if she'd ever want to.

He doesn't know of the incessant battle raging inside her that pulls in one direction and then the next in turns until she doesn't know how she remains standing.

But perhaps he does. For his eyes shine too and she lets herself fall into his embrace, her head resting on his chest, his hand on her head like an anchor, his heart beating strong and steady under her ears.

"David! David where are- oh! Emma! What's wrong? Is everything okay?"

Her mother's voice drops from a soft shouting to tender concern as she comes to stand beside them. Emma pulls away from her father, her eyes swollen from crying to meet her mother's. She stands there with one hand on her father's shoulder and one on Emma's, her eyes soft, the silver in her hair shining just like her father's.

This is how she stays.

"Everything is okay, mom."

* * *

 _It was the time of changing seasons._

 _Slowly and then all at once, Princess Emma's parents grew older. The world grew older around her too, steadily changing in colours, in weather. The flowers began to bloom and the breeze grew less biting even as she stayed the same._

 _A few miles away in the city, Killian Jones persevered. After hundreds of years of being ruled by the restiveness that lived in his bones, Killian fought the ache and stayed. He stayed, for the pull of her was stronger than the pull that called him away. He stayed for he knew he would never find another like her. He stayed because his heart, still as it was, would not let him._

 _But he did not push her. After their meeting at the tavern, he only wrote her one note. One note in which he apologised for coming on too strong, in which he promised that he would wait for her, wait for when she was ready._

 _Princess Emma kept the letter hidden under her pillows. She often pulled it out to read, his words beginning to live inside her mind, the paper turning crumpled and rumpled with use._

 _"I know how it feels, Emma, to want to run and I am afraid that in my excitement to be able to talk freely, I had perhaps allowed myself to be too free. I know what it is like to fight the pulling, to will yourself to stay for the ones you love. I must confess I have not had one to love in centuries but, I remember the feeling well._

 _I apologise if I have hurt you and I will wait here to see you whenever you may deem yourself ready and willing to do so."_

 _The Princess read his words again and again for she found comfort in the fact that he had suffered as she, that he knew what it was like and yet she could not bring herself to reply. She could not find the strength to leave the castle to do so._

 _Three weeks passed at an uneasy pace as the Princess and the Pirate each waited for something. Him for her and her for the courage to decide what she wanted to do._

 _But some things do not allow people to wait or anticipate._

 _And one day on a crisp morning in autumn, The King and Queen of Misthaven passed away together, within hours of each other._

 _It rained that day._

* * *

"Emma, please. Stop."

They are standing on the banks of the river when he finally stops her again. Far enough away from her castle, her kingdom that she lets him. The water of the river rushes past them, a soft sound as it travels over the rocks and soil on the riverbed. Birds chirp softly and the smell of wet earth fills the air around them. The rain has long since stopped but it still lingers in the gentle mist that caresses her cheek.

Though the cold makes her shiver, she thinks that in another life she would have loved seeing her kingdom this way. The colours of trees richer, clouds blanketing the mountains, the music of birds louder and more vivid somehow after the shower. But today, his hand in hers is her only anchor, her bones urging her to run, run. Run so fast that she does not have the time to think, that she does not have the time to consider what she is doing, that she does not have the time to back away.

She only shakes her head in response to him.

"Killian. I can't-"

He drops her hand, his own coming up to wipe the tears from her face, his eyes searching hers before he nods.

"My ship is this way."

He takes her hand again.

They run.

* * *

The Jolly Roger is a sight to behold as she rises above the mist, the colours of her bright even through the grey that seems to surround them. He's anchored her a way away from the city, the beach deserted save for them and the ship.

He hasn't spoken since the stop by the river and she hasn't from far before that. Her voice feels like it has been washed away with the rain. Their hands, locked together the entire journey here had drifted away as he led her to his ship. As if walking onboard together would cross whatever fragile line lay between them. Her hands wrap around herself as she lets herself feel the cold, her footsteps soft upon the wood. She follows him up the gangplank, watching his leather coat trail behind him.

She hadn't even thought to ask what he did, who he was, how he had a ship. She hadn't asked him anything. Just trusted the heavy _thing_ that lay between them. Something like understanding, something kindred.

She had been standing by the graves where they buried her parents, surrounded by mourning people, her brother's hand on her shoulder when she had seen him. Amongst the large crowd that surrounded them, his face had stood out, his eyes fixed upon the caskets being lowered into the ground, his brows scrunched together.

And the only thing she could think of was _this_.

She had explained it to Leo, as much as she had been able to between tears and stumbling words, between the storm in her mind and the stillness of her heart. Her brother had never looked older, stronger as he had when he'd hugged her and whispered for her to go. To write to him if she could.

"Quarters are this way."

Killian's voice is a little rough as he speaks, breaking her out of her thoughts. He stops and turns to look at her.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Emma?"

His gaze flickers between her eyes looking for her answer and though in that moment, the dam that is holding back the deluge in her heart creaks under the weight of her thoughts, her voice is steady as she answers.

"Yes."

A beat.

"Come on then. We'd best find you a place to sit while I-"

His voice seems to trail off as he begins walking down a set of stairs down to the crew's quarters. She thinks that she sees him shakes his head in disbelief even as he leads her down to the narrow hallway lined with doors. He opens the first door on the left and walks in. Four bunks line the walls, all empty, the beds stripped down to their mattresses.

"Wait here Princess, I'll not be a moment. I trust you'd like us to shove off as soon as we can."

He smiles at her then, small and unsure.

Still struggling to hold herself together, she can only nod and offer her own sorry attempt at a smile in response.

* * *

It only takes the sound of his retreating footsteps, the sound of water crashing against the side of the boat, the creaking of the ship as he begins to raise the anchor for the dam inside her to break.

Her breaths come fast and shallow, her eyes squeezing shut as she tries to calm. She imagines that if her heart could beat, it would be pounding in rhythm with the waves.

She feels the jerk of the boat swaying beneath her feet as they finally weigh anchor. She grabs hold of one of the wooden pillars of the bunk upon which she sits, her eyes opening as she tries to distract herself from the thoughts going in circles in her head. Questioning her impulse, questioning her decision to trust this man.

Another jerk as the ship begins to turn and gods, she has to move. The room feels to small and her mind is too wild. She opens the door out of the room and walks down the hallway. Opening the next door, glancing inside.

And the next. And the next.

She finds herself going room to room to room, her initial panic being edged away by a niggling curiosity as she sees that each room is as bare as another. No personal effects, no sheets, no books. Nothing save the furniture that is nailed to the floor. Nothing but the bones that make the ship.

"Princess?"

His voice startles her and she turns away from her inspection of yet another set of empty bunks, her eyes meeting his concerned ones.

"Are you alright, Emma?"

"Where's your crew?"

He steps in the room at her sudden question, a poor imitation of a smile gracing his lips for a moment before settling into a sigh.

"They passed. All of them. I could not bear to lose any more friends. It's been just the Jolly and me for near on 300 years, now."

He runs his hand along a pillar, his eyes following the wood around him with something akin to affection even as they lay bare the loss and loneliness of the story he'd lived. The loss and loneliness that has begun to live in her eyes too.

Perhaps she was right to trust him after all.

"And me."

He smiles wide.

"Aye. And you."

* * *

 _The world was too large, too strange and too wonderful to ever lose it's allure, even to immortality._

 _Princess Emma and Killian Jones travelled the lands and the seas of their world slowly and steadily. They climbed the highest mountains, sat upon cliff's edges, and swam in hidden lakes. They travelled down to the valleys, eyes looking upward. Watching the stars at night, watching clouds hug the mountains at daybreak. They sailed so far and so wide that there was nothing but endless blue ocean around them and endless blue sky above._

 _They ran and they ran and they ran._

 _She felt the balm of finally easing the ache in her chest, of finally giving in to the pulling current that ran through her blood. He felt the comfort of companionship for the first time in centuries. Though it was new and sometimes uneasy- usually just when it was getting to be too easy- they began to know one another._

 _They learned little things at first. The kind of things you learn about someone when you live with them. She learned that he didn't like sugar in his tea. That he liked to wake early and watch the sunrise. That on nights when he was particularly tired, he'd fall asleep with all his jewellery on, waking the next morning with the imprint of a ring or two on his cheek. He learned that she liked to raid the small library in his quarters when he wasn't looking, putting the books back just as discreetly. That she liked watching the stars reflected in the ocean water on clear nights. That she made an incredible vegetable stew._

 _Their relationship was a strange one, straddling the line of distance and familiarity with extraordinary ease. They moved around one another as though they had known each other for years, their bodies already adapting to the boundaries and freedoms they allowed each other. Hands working together to secure the rigging of the Jolly, ducking and bending around one another as they cooked, walking close together and just far enough apart as they explored another city, another valley, another wood._

 _But it was not always so easy, for though their hearts lay still as one, they had both learned to hide themselves away from the world, learned to live with the secret they carried in their bones. For you see, it was not easy to trust, to be soft when you believed in your heart that you would always be alone._

 _But it was harder still to tear those walls down, to allow yourself to hope when you realised that there might be someone who wouldn't leave._

 _He would not talk about his brother and she would not talk about her parents. One wound too old to be picked at and the other too fresh. They never talked about the bigger things they came to learn about one another. He never talked about how he would lay awake at night, during those first few days and listen to her footsteps as she wandered the ship, sleep escaping her too. She never mentioned the fact that she noticed the anguish in his voice when he woke at night, screaming his brother's name, the darkness under his eyes the next morning._

 _He never told her how he lost his hand and she never told him why she wore a bootlace wrapped around her wrist._

 _But, slowly, they learned how to do that too._

* * *

"Again? Seriously?"

Her voice is defeated as she steps into the Jolly's galley, the smell of roasting potatoes wafting in the air.

Again.

"Apologies, love. Seems that it's all we have left in the hold."

His voice is muffled, his head hidden behind the door of the large cabinet in the corner of the room. His spice cabinet. His very large, very extensive spice cabinet.

She'd learned quickly that it was one of his favourite things to do, to scour the stalls and shops of the places they visited for strange and wonderful spices, salts and dried herbs to add to his collection.

She loved watching his face light up when he found something he'd never tasted before.

(Though, she wouldn't admit it to herself quite yet.)

The aromas that floated out from the galley when he cooked (and sometimes when she experimented) were always full of magic and excitement. No matter what it was they were eating.

But though it has not been too long that they have been here, the aching pull in her belly is so much worse now that she has allowed herself to taste the rush of _moving,_ the surge of joy in her very bones when she sees the sun rise in a brand new sky, when the Jolly races through open water with no destination in mind.

They have moved from open ocean to river to bay, staying in each place just long enough that they enjoy the brief ease they get from the constant restless ache that lives in them. Moving on the moment that it resurfaces.

They have been here by these mountains for only two weeks now, much too early for the restlessness to pump through their blood once more. The Jolly is anchored in a bay surrounded by towering peaks. The idea of waking up to the sight of the sun shining through the clouds, the water around them a million shades of blue and the mountains that awed and humbled them everyday had been enough to coerce them to stay.

And even though they have now travelled together for a while, this was the first time that they had spent so much time alone, spent so much time with no one but each other, the rustling trees and the crashing waves for company. There was no market here, no palace, no people speaking in foreign tongues, no crowds to lose themselves in.

And even though the two of them have built a fragile _something_ , a relationship, a friendship, a mutual recognition of the fact that they were simultaneously strangers and the only people in the world who could understand the other; the close quarters, the being alone together had begun to niggle at them.

She leans over the counter, putting her weight on her elbows as she watches him, knowing how her voice sounds even as she begins to speak.

"This is the third time in two days that we're eating some sort of potato for a meal."

She sees him tense even as his back remains turned away from her.

Perhaps it is that they have lingered here too long. Perhaps it is that she dreamt of her brother last night, woken up with her fingers clutched around the Swan around her neck. Perhaps it is that she tried to write to him today but the words would not come. Perhaps it is that she saw Killian smile at her over his cup of tea, the sun lighting his features in the soft dawn light and she had felt her stomach flip with a feeling that terrified her.

Or perhaps she just really hates potatoes.

He turns around with a soft grunt as he finds the jar he had been looking for, opening it and sprinkling some sort of herb on the still hot potatoes. His jaw is tight, his movements stiff.

Perhaps it's not just her who has been feeling a little-

"I know. But, this is all we have right now, _Princess_."

The way he says the last word has her hackles rising, has her tensing for fight even as a small part of her wonders what exactly she's trying to fight him for.

"What's with the tone, Jones? It's your fault we have nothing but _this,"_ she points at the offending vegetable, "to eat!"

He drops the jar of herbs on the counter, his hook and hand pressing hard into the wood as he avoids her eyes, choosing to glare at the potatoes innocently sitting on the tray in front of him.

He doesn't respond for a beat, his eyes coming up to look at her and she is sure he is about to respond to her poking at him but-

"I just _hate_ these bloody potatoes!"

She almost laughs but manages to stop herself, a rogue smile escaping all the same.

"It's all you _get_ in that bloody tiny village down the way. They have _one_ grocer's and the insufferable man wouldn't sell me anything for my gold except sacks and sacks of bloody potatoes!"

She loses her grip on her laugh, a small giggle escaping her as she watches him gesture out the porthole by the side of the ship, sunlight streaming through it, his hand waving in large motions as he complains.

He freezes when he hears the laugh, his eyes moving from the potatoes to her, his eyebrows softening as his mouth remains open in the middle of his tirade.

"We should go, shouldn't we?"

She speaks through the grin she sports, her heart lighter as she says the words.

 _(We should go)_

 _(We)_

He chuckles softly too, bowing his head, his weight leaning on his arms for a moment before he looks up to meet her eyes again.

"Aye, we should. But-"

He stands up straight, turning to grab some plates from the shelf behind him before continuing.

"We should go see the rivers one more time."

He's smiling still when he pushes the plate towards her, roasted potato and a fork on it.

"Okay."

She swears that her cheeks begin to hurt from the smiling, her heart lighter than it has been in years and she lets herself wonder what it would be like if she let herself-

She stops the thought in its tracks, her fingers absently stroking the bootlace around her wrist.

Old habits die hard, after all but when he smiles at her from beneath his lashes, looking extraordinarily younger than all of years he has lived, she lets herself smile back.

One step forward, two steps back.

She lets herself dance.

* * *

The rivers are stunning.

They enter the valley from opposite directions, cutting in between the mountains before joining into a single mighty path rushing straight ahead. The water shimmers in the setting sun, the usually roaring current but a soft murmur to them, perched upon a shallow edge cut into one of the mountains that tower over the rivers.

The colours of rivers are just a hair different from one another, their blues clearly divided at the point where they join, shades swirling through one another in a rush before combining into a third as they became one.

Her feet dangle off the edge of the rock as he sits beside her, lazily looking into the valley below as they trade his seemingly endless flask of rum between them.

They've been here a while. They have watched as the sun moved from above them to slowly begin sinking behind the mountains opposite them. They have watched as the light turned from bright beams that made the water look almost iridescent to a warm, soft caress that makes his face look soft, young, that makes her hair curling around her shoulders look like a painting. They have watched as the breeze of the day, tempered as it was by the sun, turn into a soft drizzle that makes her shiver.

And they've done it all in silence. Her eyes and mind lost in the beauty that surrounds them, in the colours. The greens and blues and purples and oranges that fill her vision like a painting that keeps morphing into something more beautiful each second, the rain blurring the scene before her, making the colours soften and bleed into one another.

It makes her feel like floating.

It is not quite contentment, her heart still pulling on her to run, a storm waiting to rise in her belly. But it is about as close as she can get right now.

It is not just the scenery though, or the weather. It is him. She has found herself shuffling closer to him in degrees. Little by little. Blaming the rum, the cold, the aching silence of her heart until she feels his knees brush against hers, until she feels the warmth of him brush her shoulder. A cool gust of wind blows their way and she shivers again.

His flask moves into her field of vision as he nudges for her to take it, his shoulder pushing gently into hers and then staying there. She turns to look at him, the weight of his shoulder resting on hers feeling like more than it is as she takes the flask from him, her fingers brushing against his.

The smile on his face is soft, his hair longer than it has ever been, curling softly at his neck, swooping across his forehead. She almost wants to push it back.

She takes a sip instead, looking back at the rivers below.

"How does this thing never run out? We've been drinking for ages."

Her voice is a hoarse whisper, a thin string that barely builds into something stronger. It doesn't quite shatter the silence but disappears into it as she continues looking at the metal flask. It is covered in leather around the middle but carved around its neck and bottom. She sees swirling, coiling waves around seashells, around little boats in the ornate water.

"You tend to acquire certain magical curiosities when you've lived as long as I."

"Like the hook?"

The question leaves her lips before she can control it, spilling out of her in a rush.

He freezes beside her for a moment and she almost apologises, freezing herself, waiting for his answer, realising that she had shaken the fragile, mismatched bridge they'd been building between them, rushed at it in haste. She doesn't know what would be worse, him withdrawing from her or allowing her closer.

He surprises her though. He laughs.

She raises her eyebrow, turning to look at him. He is looking into the valley, his face in profile, lit softly by the sliver of sun that still peeks above the mountains, his eyes glowing more blue somehow than the water that rushes beneath them.

"Aye, the hook. It turns out that we're immortal not invulnerable."

She almosts laughs too but the nothingness where her heart should be, the centuries in his eyes drown the laugh in her throat.

"I lost it in a duel. Trying to defend a woman from-" he stutters, shakes his head and pauses for a beat before continuing, "I'm not certain what I was doing. One minute I was standing next to her-she was laughing at something I'd said- and the next he was there, with twenty other men, telling me he was her husband. I fought and she fought too and well-"

The silence does shatter this time. His voice clear as it seems to ring through the valley, through her as he tells a truth that he's kept guarded for centuries.

"Did you love her?"

He looks at her then and the lost look in his eyes gives her her answer even before he begins to speak.

"Aye. At least I think I did. We never got the chance to truly-" he shrugs, turning away as his voice falls again.

"He killed her before I could know."

She doesn't quite know what to say to that so she says nothing, simply passing the rum back to him, watching him as he smiles a little curve of his lips in thanks before taking a long drag from the flask.

She is lost in her thoughts and the little stars beginning to appear in the still orange sky when he speaks again.

"Have you ever been in love?"

She stiffens instinctively, her fingers going to the bootlace around her wrist, absently stroking it as she ponders her answer. Wondering if she is ready to test just how steady this bridge between them is.

She takes a step.

"Maybe. I don't know. He was a soldier. He died before we could ever be anything. He died before I could be brave enough."

She walks a little further down their bridge, even as it wobbles beneath her, even as she worries that she will fall, that he will let her fall.

He doesn't.

"Brave enough to let yourself love even though you knew that it was inevitable. Losing them some day."

He catches her instead.

"Yeah. This Never Dying thing sucks."

He chuckles and it isn't bitter anymore. Not completely. When he looks at her, his eyes are less lost, less alone, his lips curved into the remnants of his laugh.

"Aye, that it does."

His smile fades, but the softness in his face doesn't as he looks away from her.

"Milah. That was her name."

He says her name the same way that she says-

"Graham."

Decades of almosts in two syllables. He passes the flask back to her, his shoulder pressing into hers as he does.

And as she takes a sip, feels the warmth of the rum down her throat, the warmth of him by her side, she thinks of how easy it would be to lean on his shoulder then. To lean on him.

But all she does is think.

Two steps forward.

* * *

 _No matter how far, how fast or how long you run, some things will always find you._

 _Your brother's last words as he faded away. Your father's last hug before he passed. Your almost lover's hand falling away from yours. The voice of the messenger as he read out a list of soldiers lost in a skirmish with giants._

 _The costs that the Never Dying paid for their existence were many. The restless yearning that consumed them, the disconnected, unbelonging that lived in their bones. But most would argue that the worst price to pay was watching those you loved wither in front of you even as you stayed the same._

 _Killian Jones had paid the price many times over. He had lost his father to time, his mother to an illness, his brother to a poisoned thorn and the woman he could have loved to the sword._

 _And each time that he did, he lost a little more of himself, let the pull of his still heart and his restless blood pull him further and further away. When he lost Milah, lost the promise of her, of the life they could have had, he ran further than he had ever run before._

 _For the truth of it was that though he had already spent decades as a pirate, he had always lived by a code. He had never killed in cold blood, he had never hurt a man who could not defend himself, he had tried his best to spare and protect as many lives as he could._

 _He had always been Killian Jones._

 _Until the day that he had watched Milah bleed out in front of him, even as the man who called herself her husband stood by and watched. Until the day that Killian struggled against the two mercenaries who held him back, helpless to save her. Until the day that they cut off his hand._

 _("Punishment dearie. You don't touch what's not yours!")_

 _The man's unrepenting, almost joyful words had filled his mind every waking hour, following him into dreams._

 _He had always been Killian Jones until the day that he affixed a hook to the end of his injured arm and vowed revenge._

 _He had always been Killian Jones until he had become Captain Hook._

 _He chased the man, searched for him but he had gone into hiding, hidden away behind the walls of his station and his wealth. Captain Hook did not have the reach or the means to touch him._

 _So he stole it._

 _He killed and hurt and bribed and robbed. He did everything he could until he stood in front of the man who had stood by and had someone else do his dirty work, who had had his own wife killed because he suspected that she might love another, who had not had the courage to speak to her, to fight for her himself._

 _But despite all the power that he had had, all men bleed. Killian's sword had gone through him just as easily as any other mortal man._

 _Vengeance had not helped him. All he had felt then was an emptiness, an exhaustion so deep that all he had wanted to do was fall to his knees._

 _His crew had begun to grow old long before his single minded pursuit for revenge but now that he was finished, they began to leave him. Passing on to other things or passing away and he began to withdraw. He began to wander aimlessly, not truly living but merely staying alive upon the whims of his blood and his still heart._

 _Until the day that he heard the stories of a princess who would not grow old._

 _Until the day that he met her._

* * *

"Killian!"

She shouts his name into the emptiness of the riverside, half running along it as she scans for any trace of his coat, the flash of his hook, the red of his vest in the midst of the tall reeds that hide the edge of the water from view.

They had been walking through the market in a small village, the scents of freshly baked bread and brewing tea filling the air, his voice an excited murmur as he talked about the Wildflower festival that was to happen here in a few days.

" _The flowers are everywhere! And this little village looks like a scene from a story. I have seen it a hundred times and yet each time it feels like magic."_

She'd been trying to hide her affectionate smile, half amused and half thrilled as he spoke. They had just stopped at a stall to buy some salt when it had happened. A short, elderly man bumping into them, bags falling to the ground, quick murmured apologies from both sides. But, just as they had all risen, the man's eyes had grown wide. His mouth hanging open for a moment before he had backed away abruptly, his voice wavering somewhere between shock and fear as he had spoken a name she feels she had heard before but couldn't recall. She had been about to ask him if he was alright but he had begun speaking once more, his eyes focussed beside her as he stumbled on his words.

 _"Oh by all the gods, Captain Hook! I apologise sir, please don't hurt-"_

Killian's face had gone pale, the colour drained from it as the man had spoken. The man had then swiftly vanished into the crowd and when she had turned around to look for Killian, he had mumbled some excuse about meeting her back at the ship and vanished too.

It has been three hours since then. The sun has set, darkness starting to cloak the world on this moonless night and she had gotten worried, the pit in her belly growing heavier and heavier as she walks by the river bank. She doesn't know why she had come here of all places. The river was a tiny thing here, barely a few metres wide, flowing from the edge of the village out into the woods, a small tributary that joined its much larger source several miles ahead.

But, she had just gone where her blood pulled her, hoping that his had pulled him the same way.

It had.

She finds him leaning against a tree, his hand fiddling with his hook as he stares resolutely down at it, his shoulders slumping, his head bowed.

"Killian."

His name is a relieved sigh upon her tongue and yet he startles as though she had shouted it. He stands up straight, his hook quickly going behind his back and his hand to his side as his face turns from shock to guilt, his eyebrows falling, his mouth closing as he looks at her. Her own relief quickly melting into a confusing mix of anger and concern.

She stalks up to him, reaching him in three long strides, her hand about to slap against his chest, her lips about to form words demanding he tell her what he was thinking disappearing like that, telling him how worried she had been but she freezes before she can go through with the action. Her hand falls away, her mouth closing in an exhale as she abandons the words that lie yet in the back of her throat.

He is not beholden to her. He does not owe her an explanation. They are merely companions who travel together and it was not as though he was in any danger. The man had survived without her for centuries.

And yet.

Here she was, standing far too close, his breath visible in clouds in the dusk air, waiting for him to speak, wanting to ask him what had had him running away like that, what had had him leave her.

"I apologise, Princess. I should not have left you that way."

She almost feels his chest rumble against hers as he speaks, her hand itching again to soften the frown between his eyebrows, to push his hair away from his forehead and ask him what was wrong.

Instead she takes a step back.

"What happened, Killian?"

He searches her eyes for a moment before looking away.

"I am afraid that it is a long and not very pleasant tale. Perhaps we should sit."

She raises her eyebrow at him but instead of his usual grin and playful waggle of his own eyebrows in return, she gets a sorry excuse for a smile before he slumps against the tree again, sliding to sit at its foot. She joins him, a little further around the tree, close enough for their hands to touch if they moved an inch toward one another but enough distance between them that she can quell the unusually strong need she has to comfort him.

Then, he begins to speak. He tells her about it all, his brother, his love that never was, his revenge.

And she remembers then, learning as a child of Captain Hook, the dreaded pirate of the seven seas. A legend and a myth, a scary story told to young children who caused too much trouble. Her lessons had said that he'd vanished one day, presumably dead.

But here he was, his hand twisting his hook back and forth as he stumbled through his tale, his regret washing over every word as he speaks it.

"I know I should have told you sooner but I was afraid. I was afraid of what you would think of me, of losing-"

He smiles even as his head is still bowed, a defeated smile. His eyes closed, his body tense as though waiting for and afraid of her reaction.

And she waits for it too. She waits for the betrayal of his lie, for the fear to wash through her. But it never comes.

Even after all he has said, her fingers still itch to hold his hand, her eyes still search for ways to comfort him.

"You're not that man anymore, Killian. I choose to see the best in you."

She smiles then, the truth and steadiness of her words taking even her by surprise.

"I trust you."

His answering smile puts the sunset to shame.

* * *

The Wildflower festival is as beautiful as he'd described, if not more.

The flowers really were everywhere. In vases on windowsills, in carts around the square, in large bunches at every market stall they passed. They were even in places where flowers usually wouldn't be. She'd laughed as she'd followed Killian through a field on their way up to the village that morning, watching as the cows there munched on grass and meandered through it with small crowns of braided flowers on their hairy heads.

The village had come alive, the narrow roads overflowing with conversations, music in every square and people forming their own little celebrations, dancing and singing along. Flowers in bunches and bouquets, braided chains and crowns, blooms of bright yellow and white, of purple and blue were clutched in fingers as they danced, pressed into hands with shy smiles and perched upon heads with silly grins.

She had clapped along when they had walked into a square where a man played a banjo, singing a song that had people already gathering into a circle to dance along. She had smiled when Killian had pressed a small bunch of white flowers into her hand, his hand immediately going to scratch behind his ear in a nervous tick that she'd learned to notice, her cheeks warming in response.

She had laughed and eaten and drank and even danced a little bit when a little girl pulled her into a circle of twirling laughter.

It had been as magical as Killian had promised and yet, he seemed a little subdued. His smiles, though as sincere and genuine as they had always been felt just a touch dim, his laugh just a little hesitant and any time she began to try asking him about it, he would deflect. He'd turn her toward some new little curiosity, pull her along to a new song in a village corner, press a crown of flowers upon her hair.

And she had let him for she knows better than most what hiding your heart away looks like.

It had gotten worse as the day had worn on, as the people in the village softened from their loud and vibrant celebrations to whispered conversations by a fire, to songs that told stories, gathering in small groups that spoke of family.

Just like that, where they had been welcome strangers this morning, they had suddenly become outsiders. Unable to watch the intimacy of mothers braiding their daughters' hair, of lovers whispering promises to one another, their wrists still scented with flowers, of generations of families telling stories of the roots that made them, they had begun to walk back to the Jolly.

Where at least the wood of the ship would know their stories, even as everyone else who ever did was lost. There is something ironic in living longer than the stories people will tell about you but she cannot recognise it tonight when every smile on a stranger's face reminds her of what they cannot have.

It had been worth it, though, she thinks as she lies on her back in the grass of the same field they'd walked through that morning. Dotted with newly bloomed flowers, it lies on the cliff that rises above the ocean, right by the valley that leads down to where the Jolly is anchored. They had stopped here when she'd said that she wasn't quite ready to let the night go. He had only pulled a blanket out of his satchel in response.

The ground beneath her slopes softly as her eyes chase the stars across the sky, brighter tonight somehow. Killian stands in front of her, his coat lying on the grass beside her, his body silhouetted by the moon that lights the sky tonight. He looks upward too, like her but where her eyes keep coming back to the man in front of her, his are trained straight ahead and up. Unmoving, lost.

"Killian?"

He startles for a second, his body jumping just a touch before he turns around. She can't see his face very clearly but his outline is sharp as he looks down at her.

"Yes, Princess?"

She sits up, reaching a hand towards him, gesturing for him to sit by her before she continues.

"What's going on?"

He hesitates for a moment before he sighs, his shoulders rising and falling with his breath. Walking towards her, she feels his warmth fill the empty space beside her.

"You've been weird all day."

"Aye. I apologise. It's just that today is- "

She turns to look at him, his head bowed, his fingers rubbing against his rings while his hook runs softly through the grass beneath him.

"Is?"

"It's the day I lost my brother."

Her stomach drops and her heart remembers the ache of loss acutely, echoes the look in his eyes, the slump in his shoulders.

"Killian, we didn't have to- I mean you didn't say and-"

He looks up suddenly, his voice cutting her off.

"No, love. It's not that. It's- Well."

A deep breath before he shifts, turning bodily to face her. She mirrors his movement, her full attention on him and what he is preparing himself to do, to reveal another piece of what hides behind his walls. His walls that rise the same as hers.

"It was a long time ago. For years after I had lost him, I would spend this day in the dark, trying to lose myself in drink and gambling, anything that took me away from my memories. But, one year, I happened upon this village. I docked, prepared to find the first tavern and disappear until morning. But as soon as I got off the Jolly, a little boy and his father came up to me, the little one holding out a big bunch of the bluest flowers I had ever seen," he smiles as he remembers and her hand itches again, to stroke the tiny dimple in his cheek, to hold his smile right there.

"I've come here every year since then. Seeing the colours, the families, it softens the loss a little bit?"

His voice rises at the end, as though he's asking her, as though he's still unsure, centuries after the fact, if it truly does hurt less.

She wonders if this is how it will be for her, years, decades, centuries filled with remembrances of loss. She wonders when, in a few months, the first anniversary of her parents' death comes up, if the flowers would soothe her too.

"Emma?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sour the day for you. I thought that if I kept it to myself, you would enjoy it more."

His head is cocked to the side as he looks at her, regret beginning to pull his eyebrows into a frown but-

"You didn't sour anything. I loved today. I don't think I've had this much fun in a while."

The regret immediately melts into a smile, his eyes brightening as he watches _her_ smile in response until they both sit facing one another with matching grins on their faces.

"You looked- you _are_ -"

He speaks on an inhale, his words scrambling atop one another as if spilling out of his mouth faster than his brain can sort them out.

"Beautiful."

He breathes the word out on an exhale, his eyes lost somewhere in the depths of hers and later she will say something about how she was feeling good, how it had been a while, how it was the magic of the festival and the cider they'd had.

But truly, somewhere inside of her she wonders if it wasn't just the way that he looked at her, if it wasn't just that he called her beautiful and meant it, if it wasn't as simple as she wanted to.

Her eyes are fixed upon his lips, slightly parted and curved into a barely there smile that sparkles in his eyes and she wonders idly- her hands already reaching for him, her restless bones already wanting to know- how he tastes.

Their lips meet in a rush, her hands curling into his lapels and pulling him into her. He loses his balance- in more ways than one- his hand and hook falling onto the grass behind her as he tries to stay upright, his lips soft against hers but frozen in surprise.

It is only for a moment though for just as quickly as he had fallen, he recovers, his hand coming around her waist, his hook still digging into the earth as he presses back against her.

She gasps and it feels like she's breathing for the first time after spending an age underwater. She feels it pulse through her, her hand flattening against the lapels of his coat, feeling the stitching along it as she moves her fingers up and into his hair, pulling him closer, closer. The space between them filled with soft, shallow breaths and the sound of waves crashing against the cliff below.

He moves like the water, pushing into her, the weight of his body making her lean back into his arm, his lips pressing into her and then slowly pulling back, dragging his touch along her back, his mouth stealing her breath as he tilts his head a little and moves in again.

They sway in place, back and forth under a sleepy sky, above an endless ocean and she thinks dimly, lost as she is when his hand cups her cheek, his thumb stroking her chin even as his hook moves to support her back instead, that if their hearts could beat, they would be in rhythm with one another.

Her own fingers trace the scar on his cheek, her eyes slowly blinking open as he pulls away. It takes a moment to focus on his face, his eyes still closed, his breaths heavy as he sways into her space.

"Emma-"

Her name sounds broken, lost between a sigh and a gasp upon his kiss-swollen lips.

And she wants to kiss him again, the need burns through her as steadily as her breaths are not. Her fingers tighten in his hair for a moment, her mouth opening to say something, her body gently arching into him as she hovers above her, as she leans against the grass, just about to fall but for his arm at her back holding her steady.

She wants to kiss him again. She wants to run her hands under his coat and bury her face into his chest. She wants to lie here with his head in her lap, her fingers in his hair as she soothes the pain of the memory of his loss.

She wants, she wants, she wants.

It is a fierce burn inside her that makes her breathless. It makes her want him closer and further all at once, one hand gently pushing against his chest even as the other keeps their foreheads pressed to one another. His hand moves back down to her waist as they sit up, as his eyes finally open to look at her.

He searches her wide eyes, darting between them, looking for something, his mouth opening again to speak but before he can say any of the words she is afraid lie at the back of his throat, before he can say that he wants her or say that he doesn't, she stops him.

She presses her fingers to his lips for a moment, the warmth of them, the softness taking her by surprise even though she had had her lips pressed to them not a moment ago. She wills him to understand that she doesn't yet, that old habits are hard to break, that though walls can be scaled, sometimes they must be pulled down before you can walk in.

That perhaps she is not there yet.

His eyes scan her face before his lips curve into a small smile as he nods, his eyes dimming just a touch, as he presses his lips against her fingers, lingering there just a little before moving to stand.

He reaches his hook towards her as she remains on the grass, already turning away to find their path back to the Jolly in the dark.

"Shall we, Princess?"

* * *

 _Old habits are hard to break and the fear of loss lived so deep inside the Princess that she could not bear to risk losing what she had only recently gained._

 _So she began to pretend that that night upon the cliff didn't happen. She began to pretend, even as she could have sworn before a thousand gods that she felt her heart pulse with a single beat when his lips touched hers. She began to pretend, afraid that he would not._

 _But he surprised her again, catching her even as she didn't know she was falling._

 _He let her pretend, let her breathe without question._

 _Sailing together for so long, they had formed easy rituals. He would wake before her each day, make himself some tea and brew some coffee for her. The coffee would wait in the galley as she made her way up to the deck. They would stand together when the sun set, watching the colours bleed across the sky in a restless swish of a painter's brush. She would read in his quarters when he wasn't there, her legs curled into herself in his large chair behind his desk._

 _(He would sit in that chair later and lose his bearings for a moment when the scent of her washed over him.)_

 _But she was running from him, from herself. All in the small distance between the bow and the stern of the Jolly._

 _And he was letting her._

 _He did not ask why she stood on the opposite side of deck at sunset, her usual spot beside him empty even as he felt like the sky was not as beautiful as it was each day. He did not ask why she began to read in her cabin instead of his even though the chair in hers was a small, uncomfortable thing. He did not ask when she began to eat earlier and later than usual, allowing her vague mumbling excuses of not being hungry be enough explanation._

 _He let her run but she never truly ran away from him, content to keep him just far enough and just close enough all at once. Holding on to his friendship even as being near him felt like she was unravelling._

 _But he felt as though he had left his own heart anchored up on that cliff and there was no way of getting it back. The aching pull in his belly getting worse in the days since they had left, calling for him to run faster, further, more._

 _(Or perhaps it just called for him to run to her.)_

 _He knew that she felt it too for when they next docked at the next town, she asked if they could walk further inland, if they could find some horses and just go. He looked into her eyes and only saw the same maelstrom that that raged in his, the same restless anticipation for something, the same fierce wanting tempered with fear._

 _And so, they docked the Jolly and they ran, the wind tangling their hair and pulling upon their blood._

 _They ran, hoping that the running would be enough to bring them some almost peace._

 _They ran, together and alone, looking for something they were afraid that they would only find in one another._

 _They ran, afraid to lose it._

* * *

It is long past sunset when they come upon the castle. It rises large and imposing upon the small hill, the stones that make it still mostly intact even as large chunks of it are missing, walls rising around an empty ruin, vines growling wild upon it.

They don't really talk about it but both bring their horses to a stop at the gate that leads into the castle, the walls around the door having long since fallen.

Silence has followed them since they had left town, the sound of their horses hooves and occasional whinny, the only sounds that break it. She walks behind him now, watching his back as he ties his horse to a bit of fence that is still intact. His movements are stiff, tenser than usual, his fingers and hook moving in sharp jerks.

And she wonders not for the first time, if she has already ruined what she is so desperately trying to save.

She ties her horse too and wordlessly helps him find twigs and kindling for a fire. She walks through doors and walls, her hands moving along the stone that has survived all that was lost here.

They find a place to rest under a piece of ceiling that still remains from the floor above, sitting upon an exposed ledge, leaning against the solid walls of the ruin. The fire they build is unsteady, the night cold with the wind blowing in fitful bursts through the missing ceiling and the half broken windows.

She realises that despite everything, she feels comfort here. Here in this place that has withstood years, decades centuries and yet remained. This place that is merely the bones of itself and yet strong enough to stand and tall enough to shelter.

A sharp gust of wind makes her and the fire both shiver. She pulls the edges of her cloak around her as she curls into herself, swaying closer to the small warmth of the struggling fire.

"Do you want to eat something?"

His voice startles her, low and rougher than she has heard in awhile. Hoarse from disuse and yet trying not to break the silence they've buried themselves in. Another shiver runs through her when an roving breeze tickles her hair.

"I'd rather just have some of your never ending rum."

He grins when she speaks, his hand already searching inside his coat for his flask but it doesn't reach his eyes and she wonders again-

"Why did you stay?"

The question she's been carrying around for days, and if she's honest with herself, for months finally bursts out of her.

He doesn't quite catch what she says when she first says it, his head bowed looking for his flask.

"Hmm?"

He hands her the rum, his smile falling away as he focusses on her again.

"Why did you stay? Back home-" her voice catches for a second, errant thoughts of home and stability, permanency and roots run through her mind in a muddle.

"Emma-"

He begins to interrupt but now that she's begun, the words won't stop.

"When we first met, after I left that day- and I didn't even answer your note. Why-how did you stay?"

His eyes search hers as his mouth opens, ready to say the words but looking for _something_. Something like her permission, she thinks and she knows that he's pulling away, trying to stay on his side of the line they'd drawn between themselves, the line that she had reinforced with fingers against his lips and a shake of her head.

He's trying to respect what he thinks she wants. What she thinks she wants. But despite it all, she pulls him closer, poking at him, wanting to hear him say it even as somewhere in her quiet heart she already knows.

"The years I spent at home, unmoving were the most difficult because the pain was so much stronger. But I chose-"

Her voice wavers, just a little unsteady as she asks him again.

"Why did you stay Killian?"

A beat.

"I stayed for you."

He says it like it is obvious. Like he's saying that the sky is blue, that the ocean makes his blood sing, that his heart lies still in his chest.

And he stayed for her.

She feels like he's taken the breath out of her and the fear that she's been hiding away behind the silence that rises like a wall between them, breaks free. Her vision blurs for a second as she turns away from him, the colours of the fire blending in with the grey of the stone lit by it.

"Emma?"

His face comes into her field of vision as he ducks closer to meet her eyes, lowering himself from the little ledge they'd both been sitting on to kneel beside her, his hand beginning to reach out to her but aborting the movement halfway as searches her eyes again.

It had never been this difficult to talk to him before. Even as strangers, it had been easy, conversation flowing until she was carried away upon the timbre of his voice and the ease in his smile. But it is so hard now, to tell him how she feels, to unravel for herself the questions that wrap around her heart like coils, unwilling to let her reach for him.

But she tries anyway.

"When I was little, I ran away once. I didn't know I was running when I began but when I ended up at the edge of a waterfall with nowhere to go but down, I knew. It was the first time I let this- whatever this is- control me."

She looks down at him then, his face turned to face her, licks of yellow and orange light flickering on his features as he listens, his face unreadable as he waits for her to finish.

"But after that day, I chose to stay. For my family, my kingdom. I chose to stay and I chose it over and over. Every single day."

His mouth opens, his hand reaching out again but before he can speak, before he can react-

"Every day I chose, Killian. Until the day I met you."

His brows furrow, his eyes softening, his hand finally finding hers but when his fingers touch her skin, the intensity of the need that flows through her to close her fingers around his, to let herself cling to his solidity scares her. She stands then, watching him as he stands too, taking deep breaths as she tries to calm.

Her voice is steadier when she speaks next.

"When I asked you to run away with me and you said yes, just like that, it scared me more than you know. That someone would do that for me when they barely knew me. Why did you do it?"

She shivers again, her cloak having opened up as she had stood, her neck open to the brunt of the wind. Wrapping her hands around herself, she waits for him to speak, finally having run out of her own words. He steps closer to her, his eyes looking into her again, searching, searching like he always does, trying to read her and often succeeding.

"Emma, I chose you then. And I've chosen you every day after that. I will admit that I didn't quite know what I was doing when we first met but after the night of the Wildflower Festival-"

He shakes his head as if in wonder, a smile growing on his face as he looks at her with such affection that she almost smiles back, the churning in her belly easing for just a moment.

"I never thought that I could feel this way, until I met you."

He takes her hand, unwrapping it softly from around her other elbow, his fingers warm against her cold ones as he runs them along her knuckles.

"I choose you, Emma Swan. I know it as surely as I know my own name."

His lips are soft against her palm when he presses a kiss there, his mouth curving into a soft smile.

"And, should you wish to, I will wait for you to choose me too."

* * *

 _It was easier after their night spent sleeping under the stars, surrounded by the strength of enduring walls and lying apart but with hands just within reach._

 _It was easier and it was not._

 _Though her smiles came easier, her laugh became brighter, she still held herself back. She never did go back to reading in his cabin. But, she allowed herself to stand next to him and watched the stars. She allowed herself to cook with him, eat with him once more. He felt the change, felt an ache of loss for what they might have, for what he wants._

 _But even so, it was better. They had found a new balance, shifted and moved until their little bridge worked again even as it sometimes creaked under the weight of the things they wouldn't say._

 _But as they travelled, Princess Emma discovered something about herself that surprised her more than the fluttering in her belly when he stood too close, more than the rush of heat to her cheeks when he smiled at her._

 _She had begun to feel homesick._

 _It was a strange feeling. A different sort of pulling in her belly, a soft aching warmth that made her yearn for something she had never truly had. For even though she had lived in her castle for well over half a century, it had never felt like_ home _. Not in the way that the stories told her._

 _It never felt like something she would miss when she left it._

 _And even now, when her soul ached for a place to rest, she didn't think of her chambers. She didn't think of the vast ceilings and bookshelves lining the walls._

 _Instead, she found herself often lost in the midst of markets and squares, looking at families being- well, being families. She found herself staring at a mother holding her babe to her chest, slowly rocking it even as she talked to a merchant, her hand reaching for the bag he handed her. She found herself looking at children playing in little groups as parents watched with indulgent smiles on their faces. She found herself watching couples with grey in their hair, with a stumble to their step holding one another up as they laughed at something the other had said._

 _For you see, though the Never Dying had been given the gift of eternal life, they could never stay still long enough to build a home, to grow, to sustain a family._

 _The Pirate felt it too, perhaps more intensely than the Princess did for he had lived far longer than she, his heart older, his soul more tired. The feeling more intense because though he knew that her touch would make the yearning ease, he could not allow himself to search for it, to long for it without making it all so much worse._

 _So, they ran. Just as they had always done. They continued to travel across the seas, swimming with dolphins and seals, speaking with whales, spending nights surrounded by stars and days filled with a thousand little wonders. But slowly, they began to drift to smaller things._

 _They spent nights in taverns listening to stories by warm fires, with drinks in their hands and food in their belly making their thoughts heavy and hazy as they let themselves feel connected to something. They walked more, allowed themselves to meet people and learn their lives, hear little tales of joy and sadness, find a little vicarious joy where they could and try and help when they couldn't. They spent afternoons on beaches watching the sunset silhouette laughing children chasing one another in the shallow waves._

 _They began searching for home, only able to stay long enough in each place that one aching ceased and the other began._

 _Always restless, always wanting, the war in their blood raging, the Princess and Pirate ran._

 _For it was all that they could do._

* * *

She wants to take his hand.

They walk together, side by side on a little path that cuts through a field, birdsong and jingling bells hanging around the necks of sheep floating through the air. The sky is a clear blue despite it being quite late in the afternoon, clouds mere wisps of white in the expanse even as an occasional breeze keeps the heat from being any kind of oppressive.

It's a beautiful day and they feel some measure of peace, as it is early yet that they have been here, the Jolly docked by a village a few miles down the road. They had planned to walk as far as they could before stopping to find a place to rest for the night and making their way back.

He is smiling softly when she looks at him, his eyes looking forward at nothing in particular, drifting idly from tree to sky to sheep. It is not the smile he sometimes smiles at her, the kind that disarms her with it's sincerity. No, this smile is much softer than that, barely there and yet radiating from him. It is unguarded and bare, his heart reflected upon his face.

She wants to take his hand.

She wants to pull him closer, feel the warmth of his fingers around hers and the warmth of his kiss on her lips. Her hand goes unconsciously to the bootlace around her wrist, making her stutter for a second when she doesn't find it there.

She keeps forgetting that she's taken it off.

It's been a few weeks and she is not used to it not being there. It has been a constant reminder of the inevitability of loss in her life for so long, her reminder to protect herself from that pain again and yet, on a clear night a few weeks ago, when his hand had wrapped around her wrist over the bootlace, his lips pressed against her palm as he'd said that he'd always wait for her, something had changed.

When they had gotten back to the Jolly the next night, she had gone to her cabin and lain awake, listening to his footsteps as he paced the deck, walking in circles, echoing the constant up and down strokes of her fingers over the piece of leather wrapped around her skin.

And she had taken it off. Put it away in a little chest that she had claimed for her own in the corner of the cabin and gone to sleep, her fingers yet closed upon her strangely naked wrist but her heart just a smidge lighter than it had been.

She wants to take his hand.

Her fingers fidget with the hem of her cloak, running back and forth over the raised pattern upon it as she tries to gather her courage. The fear that she had carried all those days ago, after the first time his lips had touched hers, had dimmed just a little under his steady gaze, under his soft touch. But new ones had easily taken their place, her heart choking with them.

She is afraid of things changing, afraid of things becoming _real._

"Oh come now, Harold! Don't be silly!"

The voice pulls her out of her reverie, her fingers suddenly letting go of her cloak as though caught in her thoughts. She feels a nudge of a shoulder against hers, just a brief touch to get her attention and when she looks up at Killian, he is smiling, his eyes sparkling, his eyebrows raised as he gestures toward the elderly couple walking their way.

And when she sees them, she can't help but smile too.

They walk hand in hand, ruddy cheeks and silver hair, the woman carrying a basket covered in a white cloth, leaves falling out the edges of it, her eyes to the ground, her cheeks sporting a deep blush even as the man only has eyes for her. His eyebrows dancing behind his glasses as he pulls her hand up and presses a smacking kiss to the back of it.

"What? Can't man pay his love a compliment? Especially since she is the most ravishing creature alive?"

'Oh god, Harold. Someone will hear you!"

The woman raises her eyes and catches Emma's, her blush getting impossibly deeper as she realises that they've been heard and Emma cannot help but let a giggle escape her.

"See, I told you! They're going to think we've lost our marbles."

The woman's voice is a rushed whisper as she drops the man's hand, stopping to face him. Killian and Emma walk steadily forward until they eventually meet the two in the middle. The man, Harold, looks up at Killian and Emma, a laugh lighting his face up even as the woman looks everywhere but at the couple in front of them.

"It's quite alright, miss. I must say that I agree with Harold here."

Killian's voice is a gentle timbre laced with the laugh that lives behind his lips and yet it is sincere, as it always is. He takes her hand, his fingers looped loosely around her older ones, allowing her to pull away if she needed to. When she doesn't he moves her hand to his lips, his eyes filled with mischief as he presses a soft kiss there.

"Killian Jones, glad to make your acquaintance."

He releases her hand and bows then, a silly thing that makes the woman giggle in a way that sheds 20 years off her face.

(That makes Emma's quiet little heart feel so full of _want_ that she would fall to her knees or into his arms if she could.)

"Maude. Nice to meet you and I'm _hardly_ a miss!"

The woman's voice is easier now, a pleased, happy edge to it.

"Harold. Pleased as well to meet someone who truly has an eye for beauty."

A soft laugh rolls around the group before Harold speaks again.

"And who is your lovely companion?"

"Oh! Sorry, I'm Emma. Nice to meet you."

She suddenly feels like she needs to curtsy, some old lesson in the corner of a large study room comes back to her. But Harold takes her hand as easily as Killian had taken Maude's, one hand going behind his back as he bows to her.

"Charmed, milady."

She lets herself laugh in earnest. The silly, wonderful joy of sharing something like this, a connection, a moment with complete strangers rippling through her.

"Are you visiting?" Maude asks, the question spoken with a smile on her face.

"Aye, milady. Just passing through."

"Do you have a place to stay for the night? It's getting dark and the moon isn't out tonight."

"No, actually we were thinking of finding an inn at the next village."

Harold looks at Maude, his eyebrows raised even as Maude looks at Killian aghast. Her eyes flitting between Killian's face and Harold's before she speaks again.

"Oh no! The next village is miles away love, and their best inn is horrible, isn't it Harold?"

"Aye, mate. I wouldn't wish the beds at the Rocking Horse on my worst enemy."

"Oh you must stay with us! We have a spare room since Alexandra's gotten married and run off and I do miss having someone to talk to who isn't this one here."

She nudges Harold with her shoulder, who looks affronted even as his eyes seem to laugh, twinkling in the slowly receding light.

Maude passes the handle of her basket over to her forearm, both her hands coming up to take Emma's as she repeats, "You must stay, I insist!"

Killian exchanges a look with her, his eyebrows raising in question even as she tries to think of what to say. Maude's sudden hospitality had taken her by surprise, her heart warming even as she wondered how she should react to her offer. But as she looks into Killian's face, his smile soft and his eyes even softer, she feels strangely giddy as she nods at him.

"Thank you, milady. We would be happy to accept."

* * *

"Welcome to our humble home."

Harold closes the door behind him as they enter the small house. Set in the corner of a farm, it is a beautiful place, cozy and warm. Mismatched curtains hang upon the windows, little blankets and throws on the large rocking chair by one of them and on each of the four chairs that surround the little dining table.

Maude puts her basket down by the large fireplace, her hands reaching for the kindling to get the fire going when Killian immediately goes over to her.

"Oh no, miss. Let me take care of that."

Emma only smiles as Maude's soft chuckle drifts her way, her eyes floating about the rest of the house, a door leading out of the main room- to a bedroom she assumes- and a set of stairs going up to the other room in the house. It is small and a little cramped for four people but Emma feels a warmth so deep in her bones from being in this home that has been filled with love for years and years that she feels like she might weep from it.

Maude and Killian make dinner while she helps Harold setup the table and as they move about the house, he tells her stories of himself and Maude, spanning all the years since he'd met her when they were just 16 and 15. Emma cannot help but smile, her heart growing every minute as she sees just how much he loves her.

They remind her of her parents, she thinks idly as she places the last plate on the table. They remind her of silly teasing in the royal dining room, laughing dances in the ballroom and standing hand in hand, tall and strong and always together as they faced the world.

"Emma? Are you alright, love?"

Harold's voice is soft as she realises that she's been staring at the floral pattern on the plate in front of her for a good minute, until the pinks and greens of the pattern had blurred, until the lump in her throat had begun to escape her lips.

"I'm fine, sorry. Just got lost for a minute there."

Harold looks at her, his eyes wide with concern behind his glasses.

"You'll bore them half to death with your silly stories, Harold."

Maude's voice comes from behind her as she brings a big bowl onto the table, the smell of pumpkin soup wafting through the air. She looks at Emma and smiles gently, taking off her mittens and squeezing Emma's hand before turning away and going back to the kitchen.

Killian follows behind her, his platter full of freshly toasted bread, his eyes only on her though. He places the platter on the table and comes to stand next to her.

"Is everything alright?"

The tenderness in his eyes, the way his hand fidgets at his side as he sways closer into her space, the way that his voice is a secret just between the two of them makes her smile again. She takes a deep breath before she nods.

"I'm okay."

"Tell us now, how did you two meet? You're so wonderful together."

Maude's voice pulls her out of looking into Killian's eyes, making her turn to face the other side of the table where Harold pulls Maude's chair out for her while she sits, pressing a kiss to her temple before he sits himself.

She immediately turns to Killian, a panicked look on her face as she tries to think of something to say that wouldn't sound ridiculous.

 _He found me because he sensed my presence. Also, he and I are immortal._

But Killian only grins at her in response, moving to pull her chair out for her, gesturing her to sit. His voice is close to her ear, steady and sincere as he speaks.

"I can hardly remember not knowing her. I don't think I had truly lived before I met her."

She feels warmth rush to her cheeks, her ears. She turns to glare at him when he takes a seat next to her, his grin wide, his teeth biting his lower lip as though swallowing a laugh.

"Oh she blushes just like you Maude."

And as Maude and Harold laugh, Emma realises that she is only half upset with Killian for going along with their assumption that the two of them were a couple.

(She realises that perhaps she is not upset at all.)

* * *

Dinner is wonderful, the food and conversation wrapping her in a cocoon of comfort that only becomes cozier when Maude insists that they all gather by the fire while she makes tea.

When they finally settle with mugs of tea warming their hands, Killian holding his cup in the curve of his hook, Maude speaks again.

"It's such a beautiful night and sitting here by the fire with you two reminds me of my favourite fairytale. My grandmother would tell me it when I was just a little sprout, just like this."

"Oh no, here we go again."

Emma laughs at Harold rolling his eyes, Maude putting her cup down just to smack his shoulder as he grins at her, taking a sip and looking at her from above the rim of his cup.

"Hush, it's a good story."

"I'm sure it is. It's just hard to tell when you've heard it a thousand times."

Killian chuckles, the smile still in his voice as he asks.

"And what tale is this?"

"The Tale of the River Children, of course!"

But when Maude sees the blank looks on Killian and Emma's faces, her own lights up.

"You've never heard it? Oh my but you must! It's a wonderful story!"

* * *

They lie side by side on the small bed in the upstairs bedroom in the house.

The room has understandably had but one bed between the two of them and though Emma had hesitated at first, it hadn't taken more than a moment's consideration to ask him to share with her.

But now they lie on their backs, eyes trained at the ceiling as Maude's story runs through both their minds.

"Killian,"

The bed creaks as she turns to face him. Again as he turns to face her, their faces inches from one another under the blankets, the heat of his presence keeping her warm as surely as the blankets do.

"Do you believe it?"

Her voice is a whisper, an effect I the night she thinks. Or if how close he is.

"I'm not sure love. Do you? It might just be a fairytale."

His voice is just as low as hers, rumbling through his chest as he speaks.

She shifts just a little closer.

" _We're_ practically a fairytale, Killian. I mean, the curse and the eternal life thing, there must be something to it, right?"

When he answers her, she hears the same hope that lives now in every word that she speaks reflected in his.

"Right. We'll start first thing tomorrow."

"Okay."

She smiles at him in the dark. His own smile just as disarming as usual even though she only sees the curves of his cheeks reflected in the dim, dim light of stars outside their window.

"Okay."

She takes his hand.

* * *

 _Here's another story._

 _The rest of this story._

 _A story of people who are lost looking for something they cannot find._

 _Once Upon a Time, there was a kingdom in a valley by the sea. It was strange and lovely place where people went about the business of living with a little joy, a little heartache and a marvellous view of the ocean blue._

 _But, magic lived in this kingdom too. It lived in the trees that never grew old, just taller and wider, their roots becoming hiding places for the kingdom's children. It lived in the rain that cooled the air and grew flowers where it fell. But most of all, it lived in the shimmering waters of the river that flowed through the centre of it._

 _Winding and twisting its way throughout the land, the river was a mighty thing, it's current strong and it's waters rumbling with power, cutting across field and mountain and forest. The river sustained the people, the children who drank from it. It sustained the kingdom who ate food fed with its water. It sustained the land that was their home._

 _Many had tried to find the source of the river. Travelled over mountain, through valley and wood, spent weeks, months and years searching for the source of the magic that ran through it but they never did. Some say that the river does not begin in this realm but flows in from another. Some say that it is all fanciful nonsense and that the water is just water._

 _But the children know better. For they still have stories in their blood, their eyes clear and their vision uncoloured as they see all the things that people miss._

 _That when the river's waters sparkle in the sunlight, they reflect a thousand different colours. That when someone drinks from the river, their skin seems to shine as well. That no matter what, once you have taken a drink from the river, your heart is forever drawn to its path._

 _But as the children grew, the stories in their blood were lost to time, to life, to the everyday. They grew and changed and forgot until the magic of the river only remained in the stories of their own children._

 _But there were some children, who did not forget. They did not lose themselves, they did not change. They aged like normal, grew tall and strong, some say more beautiful than all the other children. But even as their friends began to forget, the stories in their blood still ran wild._

 _And one day, their bodies ceased to grow old, paused forever, their breaths neverending._

 _These were the River Children._

 _Every few years, the river would choose children before they were born, only a few every generation, who would be born with quiet hearts and restless bones. Their own stories stopped, they were doomed to chase something they could not name, doomed to run forever, never finding a place to rest._

 _Now, here is the part of the story that time often forgets._

 _They would not die for how could you die when your heart did not beat and how could it beat when your heart was incomplete?_

 _The children's hearts lay still because the river takes a piece of their hearts for itself. Lost in its waters, the children's hearts keep the river's magic alive._

 _Perhaps it is cruel or perhaps it is just that the river takes back something for all that it provides._

 _But, it is said that some of the River Children take back the missing pieces of their hearts. That they follow the pull in their blood until it leads them to the river, run further and further until they return home once more, the river calling to them._

 _They find their missing piece and finally live out the rest of their stories._

* * *

"Do you feel anything?"

"Not since the last time you asked me, love."

They stand by the banks of the river, their feet dipped in the shallow water as they wait for _something._ But nothing happens. Just like nothing has been happening for weeks.

The night that they had heard the story, the fairytale of _them,_ told to them by a woman they had just met in a land so far from their own, they had wondered how the story had travelled that far. They had wondered if it was even about the same river, the same curse. They had wondered if it was not just a fantastic coincidence, a fanciful tale that just happened to sound familiar.

But, hope is a stubborn thing and Emma and Killian had left Harold and Maude's house with a new purpose in mind. They had walked back to the Jolly and set off at once, sailing back in the direction of home, the anticipation of trying to find the truth of Maude's story fueling the fire that lived in them.

They had docked a little away from Emma's kingdom, not ready yet to step foot again in the place that had been the closest thing she had ever had to home, and they had walked. Not knowing exactly what they were looking for. Maude's story their only guide, they had found a tributary of the river and begun to walk along its bank, staying in inns in villages, under trees in woods, anywhere they could as they tried desperately to feel the pull in their hearts that Maude had talked about.

But it has been three weeks now of fruitless searching and the aching restlessness has begun to plague them both.

She feels trapped, her heart as unmoving as ever even as she tries to continue believing in the fairytale that had seemed like a shining truth in the darkness of a new friend's home, Killian's hand in hers, his smile reflecting the hope in hers. She can see that Killian feels it too, his hair messier than usual because of how often he runs his fingers through it, his footsteps echoing along the floor at night as he paces, failing to get to sleep.

He has begun to take long walks by himself at night, coming back to wherever they had decided to spend the night only when the sun begins to light the sky again. The darkness under his eyes grows every day that they do this, that they cling to a fragile thread of hope of breaking this curse.

But even so, they keep trying. As they are doing right now, standing in the shallow part of the river as it passes through a wood, their backs to a tree, leaning against it as they let the water cool their feet, as they wait and wait for something to change.

"I can't do this right now."

Her voice is a frustrated huff, a sob hidden somewhere in the back of her throat as she pushes out of the water, bending forward to put on her shoes. Her movements harsh jerks of her fingers as she pulls them on.

She hears Killian sigh behind her before he bends forward too, kneeling beside her, his hand reaching for his own boots. She feels his breath on her neck as he sways forward to press a kiss onto her shoulder from over her dress.

"Do you want to go, Emma?"

The sound of his voice seems to soften her movements, the gentle warmth of his kiss slows her breathing until she is leaning backwards, her head resting on his shoulder.

The night they had spent in a bed hand in hand had changed a few other things as well. They'd taken a few steps closer on the bridge between them, a different balance, a newer boundary. His hand reaching for her feels easier now, her lips on his cheek feel like breathing. She hasn't kissed him again yet and he hasn't pushed her. His fingers around her wrist, his smile as he wishes her goodnight are quiet reminders of a promise to wait.

It is yet soft, it is yet afraid but it is enough for her now. And it seems enough for him.

"Yes. Anywhere but here."

"As you wish."

* * *

Though they run, they do not get too far, for despite the frustration licking at their spines, the restlessness gnawing at their bones, the thing string of hope that ties them to the river yet lingers.

They only walk a mile or three deeper into the wood before they come upon an old bridge. It is overgrown with vines, green covering every inch of the wood as it arches over a small part of the river that flows through here. It appears stable and strong, standing still in the breeze even as it looks like nobody has stepped foot on it in years. Though her first instinct is to turn away, walk away from the river that has stolen a part of her, she is yet drawn to the bridge.

She realises that she has been drifting toward places like this. Overgrown and abandoned places, bare bones of things that were once great and are yet beautiful in their decline. Things that remained.

Just like them.

She looks at Killian, as they stand in front of it, raising her eyebrows in question. He only shakes his head and smiles, taking her hand and walking onto the uneven surface of the bridge.

They sit with their feet hanging off the edge of the bridge, through the railing that's covered in green. Her head on his shoulder, his arm resting behind her as he presses his weight onto his hand and hook, letting her weight rest on him.

The river rushes beneath them, the current strong in this part of it, the blue of it softer in the afternoon light, the sun hidden behind clouds today. The trees are a gentle canopy above them, soft footfalls of animals, birds fluttering through leaves as they fly with their soft songs filling the air around them.

Though his warmth and solidness behind her comforts her, the storm in her belly rages still. Warring feelings to run and to stay mixed in with a stubborn helplessness that doesn't leave.

"Rum?"

"Is rum your solution to everything?"

Her voice is muffled against his neck, a smile in it as she straightens, her hand already reaching for his flask.

"It certainly doesn't hurt."

She takes a deep drag but the taste hitting her throat is completely different from what what she is used to. She doesn't even finish swallowing before she turns to him, her eyebrows and the flask raised.

He is grinning, his smile turning into a chuckle as he watches her reaction.

"What is this? Where's your rum?"

"This is rum too, love. Just something darker- spiced too I think- that I picked up at the last village. They say it packs quite a punch."

His hand is outstretched, reaching for the flask. She hands it to him, feeling the burn in her throat as she turns away, eyes turning back to the river flowing beneath them.

"They're not kidding," she says, resting her head back on his shoulder.

* * *

The rum is much stronger than they had anticipated. The two of them had begun swaying in place and just this side of dizzy in just a couple of hours of sipping at it.

He'd taken off his coat long ago, complaining about how hot it was even as the sun had long since begun to retreat, even as she had begun to shiver with the approaching cold of the night. The leather folded up behind him, he'd lain down on the bridge, back resting on uneven wood as he'd called for her to join him.

 _"Come now, love, it's much more comfortable this way."_

 _"Shhh, Killian, you're drunk."_

 _"I most certainly am not and I take offense at such slander. I am four hundred years old, milady. I shall not be brought down by a few sips of some admittedly, truly superior rum."_

She'd been giggling in place, just about to lose her balance when he'd pulled her into his arms, her head landing on his chest and a happy scream in her throat as she'd gone down with him

They lie quietly now, her head resting on his chest still, his fingers slowly running through her hair, occasionally pressing soft kisses to her head. She feels hazy and heavy, her body sinking into his as they look up at the patches of sky visible from in between the trees, a star or two just beginning to peek through the green.

She might love him, she thinks. It is a thought that runs idly by in her mind as she shifts against him, as his arm around her only pulls her closer.

She might love him, she thinks again, her lips pressing to the skin of his chest visible from beneath his shirt, her fingers clutching at the fabric of it as she tries to pull him closer still.

She might love him, she thinks as she sits up, the thought finally catching up to her from behind the heat of the alcohol in her veins.

He sits up too, his face confused, his eyes slowly clearing as he sees the stricken look on her face.

"Emma, is everything alright?"

She might love him, she thinks, her hand coming up to rest against the scar on his cheek, her thumb running softly across it as she moves closer to him, as she watches the concern in his eyes change to surprise and then confusion, his eyes flickering quickly between hers.

"Emma?"

She loves him, she thinks, her name upon his lips sounding like reverence, like concern, like affection.

Like love.

"Killian I-"

She moves close enough that her forehead rests against his, her hand still upon his cheek, his eyes closing as she speaks, her breath making soft clouds in the cold air.

The words lie at the tip of her tongue, just waiting to be coaxed out but before she can finish her sentence, a sharp ache ripples through her chest and she falls forward with a shout, her head landing on his shoulder, her hand slipping from his face to clutch at the centre of her chest, her other hand grabbing at his sleeve.

"Emma!"

His arms are around her in a moment, straightening her so he can look into her face even as she has her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth open in a gasp, the pain spreading from her chest to her spine, licking along her until she arches her back, a choked scream escaping her throat.

"Emma, please talk to me. What's happening?"

"It hurts, where my heart is-Killian-"

Her words come out in shallow gasps as she clutches at him, the first peak of the pain now coming down until it falls into lower waves that run through her body. Killian's hand runs up and down her back, his hook moving her hair out of her face as his eyes wander her body helplessly, searching for a way to help.

But soon, her breathing slows and her grip loosens as the pain settles, still rippling through her but softer now.

"That was so strange, it felt like- it feels like-"

Her hand absentmindedly rubs at her chest even as her eyes drift toward the water rushing beneath them.

"It feels like something tugging at my heart-"

Killian seems to realise this just as she does, his hand and hook already helping her stand, his eyes still flickering up and down her body.

"Are you sure love? That you're ok to-"

She turns away to look at the river again before looking back at him. Her body feels weak, still shaken from the pain but she feels the pull again inside her but the anticipation, the hope of finally ending this rises further than anything else.

"I'm alright, I promise. Now we have to go!"

She pulls on his hand, a smile upon her lips, even as her other hand doesn't leave her chest, rubbing at the skin as though the heart inside her itched, beginning to cast off its cobwebs, beginning its first stuttering movements.

Killian only squeezes her hand in response and follows.

They stand by the bank again, their feet in the water once more. But the river isn't shallow for too long here, dipping quickly into depths, the current rushing past them with a thunderous sound in the quiet of the night.

Killian stands just a ways behind her as she begins to inch forward, feeling as though the river was calling for her to go deeper, feeling as though here was something pulling at her to move closer.

"Emma, come back!"

His voice sounds far away, lost beneath the low roaring of the water beneath her feet.

"The current is too strong tonight, we can't go any deeper."

She shrugs off his hand at her shoulder, taking another step.

"We can't wait Killian! What if this is my only chance?"

"But-"

"No, I have to try!"

She takes another step, already feeling the current pull at her feet but ignoring it in favour of the current she feels pulling at her heart. The alcohol in her blood still lingers, making her movements just a touch slower than usual, the shock she'd been through because of the pain making her unsteady.

Another step and she hears splashing behind her, a muttered curse as Killian begins to follow her.

Another step, she thinks, moving closer, feeling the pulling grow stronger still.

And it is one step too many.

The current has her in its grips in a second, the water pulling her body under and along before the scream lodged in her throat can escape.

She barely hears Killian shouting her name, a shadow of his touch on her sleeve before she is pulled completely under the water.

* * *

She pulls herself out of the water with a shuddering gasp.

Dying was never something she had truly let herself consider, far too occupied in trying to come to grips with the fact that she never would.

But now as the current carries her away, as her cloak and her dress grow heavy with water, as her movements grow weaker, water rising higher and higher across her body, she wonders if she should have perhaps thought about it.

If she should have learned to fear it like everyone else.

Perhaps then it would not feel like this. Like shock and fear and guilt. Like a trembling, helpless need to survive somehow, to _live_.

She'd never thought that she would be afraid to die, burdened as she was by her curse but now-

"Emma!"

She only just hears his voice, the roaring of the water drowning out all other sound, her throat burning as she coughs out water, her arms and legs struggling to keep her afloat. Her body feels insubstantial in the current, her flailing arms doing less than nothing as she tries to swim against it, tries to find a way back to the river bank.

The tugging she had felt in her heart seems to have ceased completely, replaced instead by the burning in her lungs, by the sharp stabs of pain on her arms from cuts and bruises as she tries to grab hold of any branch, rock, root that crashes through her path. Her vision blurs, water intermittently rushing over her head as she struggles, catching glimpses of Killian in fitful bursts.

She sees him by the edge of the river, his hook anchoring him to the earth, his hand reaching for hers as he tries to get as close to her as possible without releasing his hook. But, he struggles too, his eyes wide in alarm as he watches her get pulled away from him and she wants to shout, to tell him to stay there and not let go.

"Killia-"

But she can only half scream his name, the water rushing in to stop her as she sees him push his hook out of the earth, and come in after her.

* * *

 _"I'm a survivor, love."_

He'd said the words to her one night as they had sat in the back of a tavern when she'd asked him how he'd managed to live all these years. For despite the fact that the River Children were immortal, they weren't invulnerable. Though it _was_ possible to live forever, as long as you kept your wits about you and yourself out of anything too dangerous, Killian Jones certainly had not done so.

He had spent a hundred years or more as a pirate, picking fights and almost _looking_ for excuses to get killed and yet here he was, four hundred years later, still alive and almost entirely whole.

She hears his words now, the bitter laugh hidden behind the bravado as he'd spoken them. She hears it all over the roaring of the current as the river carries her away from the bank, away from him.

Her limbs finally give in, refusing to work as she lets the river carry her limp body. She's begun to feel lightheaded, watching little streaks of red colouring the water from the cuts on her arms, disappearing and dissolving even as she slowly begins to sink.

She hadn't even told him, she thinks, a clear thought in the midst of the haze of her mind. Through all the memories and regrets, it rings through like a bell.

She hadn't even told him she loves him.

She finds some tiny reserve of energy, of determination inside her to open her eyes once more, to look for him before she-

"Emma, oh gods, Emma-"

His arm heavy around her waist and his voice in her ear are the last things she hears before she blacks out.

* * *

"Wake up, love. Come on-"

She wakes with the warmth of his lips on hers. For a split second she feels like melting into it, but then she sits up, the water caught inside her coming out in harsh coughs as Killian holds her hand through it all.

She's lying against a tree, a little ways from the river, her clothes soaked, breath heaving as she tries to calm it. He sits beside her, moving closer as she starts breathing slower, pulling her hand in his up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against her knuckles even as he tries to calm himself.

His hair is plastered to his forehead, his eyes wild, flickering desperately across her as he waits to see if she's alright.

"You came after me."

Her voice is a hoarse rasp, a cough following her sentence, Killian's hook immediately rubbing soothing circles against her back.

"Of course I did. I-"

He stops speaking abruptly, choosing instead to smile softly before pressing a kiss to her knuckles again.

"Of course I did," he repeats, shifting closer, his hook now moving up and down her back, his hand fidgeting with her fingers, his own shifting gently across them, moving down her palm to her wrist and then back up again.

She loves him, she thinks again. The stubborn thought back to niggle at her once more but this time, she listens to it.

He is just as surprised as the first time when she pulls him into her, his lips crashing against hers first in shock and then with a desperate urgency that she immediately reciprocates. Her back hits his coat, thoughtfully spread on the forest floor, his hand tangles in her hair first before reaching down to unpin her cloak and then drifting lower until it curls around her waist.

Her own hands move unsteadily across his back, up and down, moving into his hair to sink into the strands and then out again. The water from his wet hair drips onto her forehead, their soaking clothes making it just that much more difficult to move. Her leg trying to curl around his but failing, her skirts just too heavy to finish the movement.

But it does not seem to matter, his kisses are no less intense as he presses against her mouth again and again, stealing her breath away in a much more pleasing way.

When he pulls away to give them a chance to breathe, he buries his face in her neck instead, his lips breathing small puffs of warmth onto her skin before leaning closer still to press soft kisses against her collarbone.

"I love you."

She says the words amidst soft breaths, her voice almost a sigh as she feels herself sink deeper into the earth with the admission, her body relaxing, her fingers running softly through his hair.

He raises his head immediately, his eyes searching hers like he does so often. She moves her hand to his cheek, her fingers stroking his scar again as though catching up right where they had left off before the river had pulled her in, her mouth curving into a smile she cannot control, her chest feeling so incredibly full.

"I love you," she says again, reassuring him as she watches him shake his head softly as though unable to believe her. The surprise in his eyes melts into joy, his mouth curving into a grin, his eyes sparkling with everything she hopes that he sees in her eyes too.

He shakes his head again, a shaky laugh escaping him before he falls forward, his smile bumping against hers as he mumbles his love against her lips again and again.

* * *

It happens to him late at night, when he is lying next to her in bed, his hand running softly through her hair as she sleeps, her breaths soft and even against his chest.

It happens to him so softly, so gently that he almost doesn't notice, the ache in his chest come and gone before he can even register it.

He has been in love with her so long, fallen for her in degrees, allowed himself to accept it every time she smiled, every time she let him hold her hand, every time she looked upon the ocean with wonder in her eyes.

He has been in love with her for so long that when the final piece falls into place, he only shifts against her a little before falling to sleep himself.

* * *

 _For everything the river gives, the river takes away._

 _But even the river must bow in the face of true love._

* * *

She wakes earlier these days, her eyes slipping open a couple of hours after dawn even as he continues sleeping. His face always looks so much younger when he's asleep, soft and content. Almost the way he looks just after he's done kissing her hello.

The sun shines through curtains that aren't closed all the way, little beams passing through the gaps, lighting his face in hazy lines of diffused light. She sits up, his body turning and shifting closer to her lap as he compensates for her movement. Running her hand through his hair, she scratches softly at his scalp, laughing when he lets out a pleased sound, curling closer to her.

After that night by the river, she'd decided to stop, to try her best to embrace the fact that they were living out a paused story, that they would never get to truly find home.

But when she had told him, her words a little jumbled, a little stuttered, he had only kissed her and said that perhaps finding a little bit of home in one another would be enough.

And it was. Mostly.

They still moved from place to place, never staying longer than a few weeks, their familiar aches pulling at them to move.

Today she wakes up in a cabin by a lake. They'd found this little settlement by the water where the people were kind, tomatoes grew aplenty and a little grey kitten roamed into their rented cabin every day to say hello. Here, tucked under heavy blankets, Killian's warmth pressing close to her side, his arm reaching to curl around her waist, she feels content.

And then she doesn't.

It takes her by surprise, the feeling of peace. Her belly doesn't churn in anticipation of the next place, in the itch to leave this one. Instead, as her fingers continue running through Killian's hair, all she feels is a deep calm, a happy exhaustion settling into her that makes her sink down into the blankets once more, shifting and curling until Killian's head rests against her chest instead of her lap.

"What's wrong love?"

His voice is a mumbled rasp against her skin as he softly nuzzles against her, pressing a soft kiss to the centre of her chest before settling in again.

"Nothing, go back to sleep."

She doesn't not take time to investigate the foreign feeling, her eyes already fluttering shut, a smile curving upon her face. But before she can allow herself to drift away, she feels Killian jerk up.

He sits up suddenly, her own body responding to the urgency in his, sitting up too even as she opens her eyes blearily, a little disoriented.

"Killian, what's wrong?"

"Bloody hell."

He's not looking at her so much as he's staring at her chest, his voice a murmur as he reaches his hand out to press against the centre of her chest, a little to the left, just where her heart-

"Oh my god."

"You feel it, love?"

He meets her eyes then, wide, happy, confused. She presses her hand against his as they both feel the steady thump-thump of her heart finally beating in her chest.

"I do."

He pulls her into him immediately, his laugh a joyful thing ringing in her ears, her hands wrapping around his neck as she laughs too.

He's pressing a thousand kisses on her temple, her cheek, her jaw, anywhere he can reach. Pulling back to press a happy smack against her lips, his forehead falls against hers even as her hand slips from behind his head to his neck, her fingers searching, searching.

For even as the initial joy of having her heart beat had overwhelmed her, her only thought had been, oh gods, please. Him too.

He realises what she's doing just as soon as her smile falls, her eyes falling to his neck. His mouth opens to say something even as her fingers search, wandering where his pulse ought to be, pressing deeper until-

"Killian, it's there! It's faint, but I promise-"

She meets his eyes then, shining with almost tears, her smile a ridiculous thing that does not want to stop. He looks astounded, his hand just this side of shaking as he follows her fingers, feeling his veins pulse softly as his heart beats.

"But, how?"

"I don't care, Killian- I don't-"

She kisses him again, her body falling into him with such force that he falls back onto the bed. Her lips trailing across his face, his cheeks, their smiles bumping against one another, a stray tear escaping in the press of their mouths until finally she finds his pulse again, her mouth marking him there. Her fingers remain pressed against it even as he kisses her chest, his ear resting against the bare skin between her breasts.

They fall asleep that night facing one another, his head resting against her pulse, their hands intertwined against his heart.

And for the first time, when they dream, their hearts beat steadily.

Together.

* * *

 _Most stories have endings, but the best stories just have more beginnings._

 _The Princess and the Pirate regained their beating hearts and finally began to live out the rest of their story._

 _The Princess went home first and held her brother, made her apologies and told her stories between laughter and tears. The Pirate visited his own brother's, his mother's graves and talked to them of the Princess he had fallen in love with._

 _They went back to where they had left off. They went back so they could continue on._

 _But despite having found their hearts, despite the content feeling that could now live in their bones, they had a lifetime of longing left in them so they travelled still. They visited all the places they had fallen in love with and all the places they hadn't yet seen._

 _The difference was that this time, they always had a little home by the river, small and cozy and theirs, to come home to. A little home with a garden and an extraordinary kitchen, a room just for books and shelves upon shelves filled knick knacks from all over the realm telling the stories they had lived._

 _Their home telling the story they had finally been allowed to live._

 _A story for the ages, one that doesn't end but lives always, in its happily ever after._


End file.
